Japan’s death penalty works through a sequence that begins with a narrow list of capital crimes, runs through a trial by professional and lay judges, passes through two levels of appeal, and ends with a hanging ordered personally by the Minister of Justice and carried out with no advance warning to the inmate. The method has not changed in over a century: Article 11 of the Penal Code specifies death by hanging inside a penal institution.
Crimes That Can Bring a Death Sentence
The Penal Code lists a limited set of capital-eligible offenses. Most involve loss of life; a few concern national security.
- Insurrection aimed at overthrowing the government (Article 77)
- Inducing foreign aggression against Japan (Article 81)
- Aiding a foreign enemy at war with Japan (Article 82)
- Arson of an inhabited building (Article 108)
- Flooding an inhabited building (Article 119)
- Derailing a train or destroying a vessel resulting in death (Article 126)
- Poisoning a water supply resulting in death (Article 146)
- Murder (Article 199)
- Robbery resulting in death (Article 240)
- Robbery with sexual assault resulting in death (Article 241)
In practice, nearly all death sentences arise from murder or robbery resulting in death. The national security offenses at the top of the list remain on the books but have not produced a capital conviction in the modern era.1Japanese Law Translation. Penal Code, Act No. 45 of 1907
How Courts Decide on Deathh2>
The Lay Judge Panel
Since 2009, serious criminal cases have been tried under the lay judge system, or saiban-in seido. In a capital case, three professional judges sit alongside six citizens drawn at random from the electoral rolls. All nine members deliberate together on both the verdict and the sentence. A guilty verdict or a death sentence requires a majority, and that majority must include at least one professional judge.
The Nagayama Criteria
Courts do not choose death based on the offense alone. A 1983 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Norio Nagayama established the framework that trial panels still apply. Judges weigh the nature and motive of the crime, the method, the number of victims, the impact on surviving family, the defendant’s age and criminal history, and whether rehabilitation appears possible. Multiple deaths make a death sentence far more likely, but a single-victim murder can qualify when the circumstances are exceptionally brutal. The criteria are meant to constrain arbitrary sentencing, though they offer little direction on how to balance one factor against another.
Appeals and When a Sentence Becomes Final
A death sentence handed down by a district court is not the end of the case. The defendant can appeal to a high court, which reviews both legal errors and factual disputes. A further appeal can go to the Supreme Court, which generally confines itself to constitutional questions and significant points of legal interpretation rather than reweighing evidence.
Once the Supreme Court upholds the sentence or declines to hear the appeal, the judgment becomes final. Authority over what happens next passes from the courts to the executive branch. A defendant can still file a request for retrial if new evidence emerges, and that process can extend for many years.
The Minister of Justice’s Order
After the sentence becomes final, execution requires a warrant signed personally by the Minister of Justice. Article 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states that the order should be issued within six months of the judgment becoming final, but the clock pauses whenever the inmate has a pending retrial request, a pardon petition, or any other active legal proceeding.2Japanese Law Translation. Code of Criminal Procedure
In practice, the six-month deadline is aspirational. Ministers of Justice hold broad personal discretion, and some have been openly reluctant to sign warrants during their tenure. Before a case is presented for signature, the Ministry reviews it internally to confirm that no legal proceedings remain open and that the inmate’s mental condition does not require a stay. The timing of a signing is not announced in advance.
Article 479 requires the Minister to order a stay if a condemned inmate is in a “state of insanity,” and execution is also paused for women who are pregnant. The law does not define insanity for this purpose, and no independent body monitors the mental health of death row inmates. Human rights organizations have documented cases where inmates with diagnosed psychiatric conditions were executed nonetheless.
How Executions Are Carried Out
Article 11 of the Penal Code requires that the death penalty be carried out by hanging inside a penal institution. Executions take place at seven designated detention centers. In the execution chamber, three correctional officers press buttons simultaneously from an adjacent room to trigger the trapdoor. Only one of the buttons is actually connected to the mechanism, so no individual officer knows which of them caused the drop.1Japanese Law Translation. Penal Code, Act No. 45 of 1907
Same-Day Notification
Inmates receive no advance notice of their execution. On the morning it is to occur, typically just after breakfast, a prison officer tells the condemned person that the sentence will be carried out within the hour. The inmate is allowed a final meal and a brief period for religious reflection.
Family members and lawyers learn of the execution only after it has taken place, usually by phone from the detention center. A Ministry of Justice press conference later in the day is often how the public finds out. The government defends the practice as a way to prevent emotional distress and maintain order within the facility. It also forecloses any last-minute legal challenge.
In 2021, two death row inmates filed suit in Osaka District Court arguing that same-day notification is unconstitutional and violates basic human dignity. The court dismissed the case in 2024, the first ruling of its kind. The policy remains in force.
Life on Death Row
Condemned inmates are held in solitary confinement with no contact with other prisoners. Daily life follows a rigid schedule of meals, sleep, and short periods of solitary exercise in a small outdoor area. Movement outside the cell is rare and closely supervised.
Contact with the outside is tightly controlled. Visits from family and lawyers are limited to an approved list and take place under observation. Mail is censored by prison staff. Television and radio are generally forbidden, and reading material is limited to what the facility provides or approves. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has criticized the prolonged isolation, citing cases where inmates spent up to 40 years in solitary confinement before execution, and has objected to the use of 24-hour video surveillance in cells.
Inmates live for years, and sometimes decades, with the knowledge that any morning could bring their execution notice. Several have developed severe psychiatric conditions during their detention.
Wrongful Convictions
The risk of executing an innocent person is not hypothetical. Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to death in 1968 for a quadruple murder and spent over 45 years on death row before DNA evidence cast serious doubt on the physical evidence against him. A court granted a retrial in 2014 and ordered his release from prison. After extended procedural fighting between defense lawyers and prosecutors, the Shizuoka District Court acquitted him in September 2024, making him the longest-serving death row inmate on record to be exonerated.
Retrial requests can take decades to process, and prosecutors are permitted to appeal even a decision granting a retrial. The Code of Criminal Procedure allows retrials when new evidence emerges, but there is no mandatory review of death sentences; the burden of uncovering errors falls almost entirely on the defense.
The Pace of Executions Today
Japan does not execute inmates on a fixed schedule, and long gaps between executions are common. The most recent was on June 27, 2025, when Takahiro Shiraishi was hanged for the 2017 killings of nine people. That execution was the first since July 2022, a pause of nearly three years. Ministers of Justice differ in their willingness to sign warrants, and political dynamics affect the timing.
As of mid-2025, over 100 inmates remained on death row. The population changes slowly, since only a handful of executions are carried out in any given year while courts continue to hand down new death sentences. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has recommended that Japan establish a moratorium, reduce the number of capital offenses, and accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Japanese government has shown no indication of moving in that direction.