## Facts

- A criminal defendant was convicted in a lower court of a serious offense under Japan’s Penal Code and was sentenced to death.
- The case arose soon after the postwar Constitution of Japan took effect (May 3, 1947), and the defendant argued that capital punishment could not stand under the new constitutional rights framework.
- On appeal (jōkoku) to the Supreme Court of Japan, the defendant primarily attacked the Penal Code provisions authorizing the death penalty as unconstitutional.
- The defendant invoked Article 13 (respect for individuals and the right to life, subject to public welfare), Article 31 (no deprivation of life or liberty except according to procedure established by law), and Article 36 (torture and “cruel punishments” are absolutely forbidden).
- Because the appeal raised a major constitutional question, the Supreme Court heard the case in the Grand Bench.
- The Supreme Court’s judgment rejected the constitutional challenge and left the death sentence in place.

## Issues

1. Whether the Penal Code’s authorization of the death penalty violates Article 36 of the Constitution, which absolutely forbids “cruel punishments.”
2. Whether the death penalty is incompatible with Article 13’s protection of the right to life and individual dignity, given Article 13’s “public welfare” limitation.
3. Whether Article 31’s reference to deprivation of life “according to procedure established by law” indicates that the Constitution permits criminal punishments that take life when imposed through lawful procedure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court (Grand Bench) upheld the constitutionality of statutory capital punishment.
- The Court held that the Constitution should be read as assuming and allowing the continued existence of the death penalty as a criminal punishment, when imposed by law and through proper criminal procedure.
- The Court held that the death penalty, as such, is not automatically a “cruel punishment” prohibited by Article 36.
- The Court dismissed the appeal (jōkoku) and affirmed the conviction and death sentence.

## Legal Principles

- Article 13 requires the state to give the greatest respect to individuals and to the right to life, but the Constitution also places that protection within the limit of “public welfare,” allowing restriction or deprivation by statute in limited settings such as criminal punishment.
- Article 31, by stating that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty except according to procedure established by law, contemplates that deprivation of life may occur through criminal punishment when lawful procedure is satisfied.
- Article 36 does not make every severe punishment unconstitutional; capital punishment may be “ultimate” and severe, yet still fall outside the category of “cruel punishments” as a constitutional matter.
- The Court distinguished the existence of the death penalty from the method of execution: even if the death penalty itself is constitutional, an execution method could violate Article 36 if, in light of the time and surrounding conditions, it is generally seen as cruel from a humanitarian viewpoint.
- The Court indicated that execution methods such as burning at the stake, crucifixion, public exposure of severed heads, or boiling to death would be the type of methods that would trigger Article 36 invalidity if adopted by law.

## Conclusion

In its March 12, 1948 Grand Bench judgment, the Supreme Court of Japan rejected a constitutional attack on the Penal Code’s death penalty provisions, reasoning that Articles 13 and 31 anticipate that life may be taken through criminal punishment when authorized by law and imposed through proper procedure, and concluding that capital punishment is not, by itself, a “cruel punishment” barred by Article 36, while leaving open that unusually brutal execution methods could be unconstitutional.


Saikō Saibansho [Sup. Ct.], Grand Bench, Mar. 12, 1948, 2 Keishū 3 191 (Japan).