# Topic II. Policies through which the police conduct interrogation

The police are steadily implementing various policies regarding interrogation, expending every effort in order to effectively gain the trust of the people.

Due to the string of judicial system reforms, various systems such as pretrial conference procedures, expedited trial procedures and state-appointed defense council system for suspects were gradually put into place as measures to improve and accelerate criminal trials. On May 21, 2009, the law regarding juror participation in criminal trials went into full effect. Under this law, citizens participate as jurors in criminal trials, and decide along with a judge whether or not a suspect is guilty, and if guilty, decide on the criminal's punishment.

The police are working diligently to collect objective evidence about crimes to make it possible for jurors, who are not specialists, to form accurate impressions. The police are also compiling documents in clear and simple ways to make them easy-to-understand for jurors, and are promoting policies such as the following regarding interrogations.

## (1) Trial sound/video recordings of interrogations by the police

In order to facilitate discussion on effective and efficient proof policy of voluntary confession within the trial-by-jury system, from September 2008 the NPA and the prefectural police organizations of Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Osaka began trial audio/video recordings of interrogations. The trial lasted for half a year, until February 2009, and recorded 66 interrogations.

The results of this trial as examined in the NPA were:

· The DVDs of recorded audio/video produced from the trial can be thought of as an effective and efficient measure to prove voluntary freedom of confession.

• There have been instances in which suspects have denied audio/video recording or changed the content of their statements and the way they act due to recording. It is obvious that there are times when recording has an influence on true inquisitive nature of interrogations, and thus it was realized that adequate consideration must be made before carrying out an audio/video recording.

The police have gathered examples of how DVDs were used and examined the usage situation of DVDs in trials by each prefectural police organization. Since April 2009, the police have been carrying out multi-faceted discussion on how to make policy even more effective in order to contribute to the gathering of effective and efficient voluntarily free proof for jury trials.

## (2) Propriety in Interrogation Practices

In criminal procedures in Japan, the interrogation of suspects plays an extremely important part in the investigation of a case. However, recently there have been a series of acquittals which put into question the function of interrogation practices. The trust of the people in police investigations, including interrogations, has been greatly shaken. $ ^{1} $

Note 1: In March 2007, a suspect accused of breaking public election law regarding the Kagoshima Prefecture Parliamentary Elections in 2003 was found not guilty. In October 2009, a suspect accused of rape and attempted rape for incidents which occurred in Toyama Prefecture in 2002 was found not guilty. Furthermore, in June 2009 a reexamination using DNA evidence in Tokyo High Court of the murder of a young girl in Tochigi Prefecture in 1990 put a stop to the death sentence of the man convicted for the crime and set him free. In relation to this incident, moving forward, the police will look into problem points regarding investigation.

Under the trial-by-jury system, the results of investigation fall directly under the eyes of the people. Accordingly, from the perspective of making a contribution to the formation of impressions by jurors, many are calling for the police to discuss the establishment of an even more appropriate system for investigation procedures, especially interrogation methods to the suspects.

Against this backdrop, the National Public Safety Committee had recognized the urgency of ensuring propriety of interrogation practices in police investigations and announced its decision “Ensuring the Propriety of Interrogation Practices in Police Investigations” in November 2007. Based on this decision, the NPA considered measures and, taking into account the opinion of experts in the advisory council on ensuring the propriety of interrogation procedures in police investigations, formulated the “Guidelines for Ensuring the Propriety of Interrogation Procedures in Police Investigations (hereafter referred