Speedy Justice?

"The May Day incident is no longer a subject for jurists," said Tokyo University Professor Hideo Fujiki. "It's already one for the historians." Not quite. The incident occurred in 1952, when 6,000 demonstrators shouting "Yankee go home!" and demanding a new government clashed with 1,000 police amidst the fragrant pine groves and the graveled walkways of the plaza outside Tokyo's Imperial Palace; two died and more than 1,400 were injured.

Yet it was only last week, 17 years and nine months after the rioting, that the Tokyo district court finally ended its trial of 261 people who were accused of taking part. It was the longest-running case in Japanese judicial history. When Judge Seirokuro Hamaguchi, 62, offered the opinion that the case had not violated the constitutional guarantee of "a speedy and public trial," several angry defendants shouted "Bakayaro!" (Idiot) from the dock.

It was back in September 1952 that the 261 accused demonstrators were first indicted. At that time, the court embarked on what the judge described as a "tree-to-tree" investigation of each defendant's May Day movements. In the course of 1,792 sessions (an average of 100 a year), the court listened to 954 witnesses, examined 1,300 photographs and three truckloads of evidence, including 1,080 rocks allegedly hurled by the demonstrators, and amassed so much testimony that if the transcripts were piled one atop the other, they would make a stack at least 120 ft. high.

The cost to the state and the defense was estimated at $611,000, but the human cost was far greater. In a land where, according to a legal expert, "the public equates suspects with culprits," many defendants found it difficult to get jobs or to keep them. One taxi driver took an assumed name, switched jobs 20 times and, fearful of being identified, never got married. Another defendant kept getting fired because he was absent from work so often nursing imaginary colds or attending funerals for nonexistent relatives--excuses invented because of his interminable court appearances.

Of the original 261 indicted, 110 were acquitted; 93 were found guilty and given suspended sentences ranging from fines of 2,500 yen ($6.95) to two years' imprisonment; 16 have died since the trial began; and a number of people who pleaded "partially guilty" will be sentenced shortly. Some defendants swore they would appeal their convictions. Said Eiichi Iwata, who drew a two-year suspended sentence: "We'll fight to the end." For Iwata, now 62, it might be just that; an appeal to the Tokyo High Court and the Supreme Court could take ten years or more.

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