Norio Nagayama

Norio Nagayama ( Japanese 永 山 則 夫 , Nagayama Norio ; born June 27, 1949 in Abashiri , † August 1, 1997 in Tōkyō by execution ) was a Japanese murderer and writer.

biography

Nagayama was born in 1949 in Abashiri , a coastal town on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō . He spent his childhood in extremely poor circumstances, during which he committed minor crimes. As a teenager he moved to Tōkyō in March 1965 . At the age of 19, between October 11, 1968 and November 5, 1968, he assaulted four people - two taxi drivers and two security officers - and shot them with a .22 caliber revolver stolen from a U.S. military base . They were robberies with very little loot. After a failed raid, he was arrested on April 7, 1969.

After a lengthy trial, Nagayama was sentenced to death in 1979 , although he was still a minor under Japanese law at the time of his actions . In 1981 the higher court converted the original judgment into life imprisonment , but in an appeal two years later, the first instance judgment was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court . In 1987 the higher court upheld the death sentence that he had actually overturned. A final appeal by Nagayama's attorneys was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 1990. The back and forth led to the formation of the so-called “Nagayama criteria” with nine individual points, on the basis of which every death sentence must be checked for its appropriateness.

It has been and is often claimed that Nagayama only learned to read and write in prison. He himself attributes his murders - as did the higher court when giving reasons for his appeal - to a lack of education. Of course, he had a middle school diploma. It is true that almost immediately after the beginning of the prison term, he perfected his writing and rapidly improved his poor education. Above all in the fields of law, literature and politics (especially communist theories) he pursued a diligent study. He wrote numerous poems, autobiographical prose works, short stories and novels, including the two bestsellers Muchi no Namida ("Tears of Ignorance") and Kibashi ("Wooden Bridge"). He offered the income from his books to the families of his victims; two accepted, two refused. Supporters in Japan and far beyond campaigned for his pardon, including the Saarland regional association of the Association of German Writers declared him a member.

On August 1, 1997, Nagayama and three other people sentenced to death were executed - as is common in Japan - without prior notice to family members, lawyers or himself. He died at the age of 48 after 28 years in prison by the train . His body was then cremated on behalf of the prison administration. His lawyer suspected that this was to hide traces of the agony from the relatives.

Works

• 1971: Muchi no Namida ( 無知 の 涙 )
• 1984: Kibashi ( 木橋 )
• 1986: Sooren no Tabigeinin
• 1987: Sutego Gokko
• 1988: Shikei no Namida
• 1989: Nazeka Umi
• 1990: Isui
• 1997: Hana

Individual evidence

1. ↑ RB Essig, G. Schury: Bad fingers. 2008, pp. 222-237.
2. ↑ DA Métreaux: Nagayama Criteria. 2009.
3. ↑ Quoted from DA Métreaux: Nagayama Criteria. 2009, p. 285: "The government should have saved the accused from his poor surroundings. It would be unfair to ignore the lack of proper welfare policies and lay all the responsibility to him."
4. ↑ amnesty.org: DEATH PENALTY NEWS, September 1997 (accessed December 4, 2007)
5. ↑ amnesty.de: Annual Report 1998 - Japan (accessed December 4, 2007)
6. ↑ Hidden Death Penalty in Japan

Secondary literature

• Tears of ignorance. The murderer and author Norio Nagayama. In: Rolf-Bernhard Essig, Gudrun Schury: Bad fingers. A criminal history of the arts from Villon to Beltracchi C. H. Beck , Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67372-6 , pp. 222-237.
• Daniel A. Métreaux: The Nagayama Criteria for Assessing the Death Penalty in Japan: Reflections of a Case Suspect. In: Southeast Review of Asian Studies. Volume 31 (2009), pp. 282-289.
• Siegfried Schaarschmidt: Literature from the Japanese death row. The Fall of Nagayama Norio. As well as: Nagayama Norio: poems and texts. Translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt. In: Booklets for East Asian Literature. 23, 1997, pp. 10-19.