Lay Prosecution of U.S. Military Crimes in Japan by Prosecutorial Review Commissions and the Saiban-In Trial

On January 12, 2011, nineteen-year-old Koki Yogi returned from Tokai City of the Aichi Prefecture to his hometown of Kitanaka Gusuku in Okinawa to attend the official adulthood ceremony of his twentieth birthday organized by the local government. 2 A few days before the ceremony, at 9:43 p.m., a vehicle driven by a twenty-three-year-old American military serviceman from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) suddenly swerved into the oncoming lane, striking the compact car driven by Koki Yogi.3 The AAFES employee was taken to U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa on Camp Lester but soon released, while Yogi was taken to Chubu Tokushukai Hospital and died the next morning.4 AAFES spokesperson Sergeant First Class Jon Cupp gave an official statement on the incident, stating that because the driver was a civil-ian employee of the U.S. military, he would remain in U.S. custody and not be handed over to the Japanese authorities.5 Sergeant Cupp refused to disclose additional information regarding the driver's name, background, or the probable cause of the accident -including the possibility of drunk driving.As Yoki's mother Manami Kamiya prepared for her son's funeral in Kitanaka Gusuku, she was informed on March 24th by the Okinawa Prosecutor's Office that it had decided not to indict the American soldier, explaining that the traffic collision took place while the soldier was on official duty. The Japanese prosecutor cited Article 17 of the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which gives the the American military the primary right to exercise jurisdiction over all accidents or crimes committed by its service members on official duty, thereby legally precluding the Japanese authorities from prosecuting the soldier.7 Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that it had decided to punish the American military employee by suspending his driving privileges in Japan for he next five years. On April 25, nearly a month after the Japanese prosecution's nonindictment, Kamiya filed a complaint with the local Prosecutorial Review Commission (PRC)-Japan's grand jury system-in Naha, requesting a citizens' panel to review the Japanese prosecutors' non-indictment decision. The PRC Law specifically allows victims' families or their proxy to file a petition with an eleven member civic panel to examine whether or not this decision was legitimate or appropriate on the basis of evidence and investigative materials submitted to, and gathered by, the civic panel During this investigation, it came to light that the American driver consumed alcohol at an official party prior to the accident.The next day, on April 26, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly voiced support for the local prosecution of the serviceman by issuing a statement, condemning both the driver's actions and the subsequent nonindictment by the Japanese prosecutors.U The assembly also demanded equitable revisions of the U.S.-Japan SOFA and a significant reduction of American military bases in Okinawa. The victim's mother announced that she also planned to meet local women's groups, as well as members of the Japanese Diet, local assemblies, and local grassroots organizations to demand the revision of the SOFA, stating that "the courts dropped the case in a one-side[d] decision, and I'm not going to accept that in silence.''On May 25, after long deliberation, the Naha PRC reversed the Japanese prosecutors' non-indictment decision and determined that the indictment is proper for the given case.14 The PRC specifically cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision which found that in military-related crimes and incidents overseas, civilian employees and contractors of U.S. military bases, as well as dependents of military service-members were not subject to military rules and regulations governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), thereby excluding them from the privileges granted under the SOFA.The PRC also reasoned that in the NATO SOFA signed with European countries, the U.S. military had accepted a similar limited jurisdiction over its civilian components, such as family members, civilian employees, and contractors during peacetime. 16 The PRC also cited a case in the South Korean Supreme Court which stipulated that the U.S. military has no right to exercise its jurisdiction over civilian employees of American military bases during peacetime, a decision similar to the 1960 U.S. Supreme Court ruling。