Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T07:23:41.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Organization of Prosecution and the Possibility of Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

David T. Johnson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In prosecution, as in armies, prisons, and schools, organization matters. Japanese prosecutors work in an organization that differs markedly from the organizations in which their American counterparts work. This fact has important implications for how prosecutors in Japan define and perform their central tasks and thus for the quality of Japanese criminal justice. Most critically, the Japanese way of organizing prosecution enables prosecutors to effectively manage the tension between two imperatives of justice that American regard as often incompatible and always in tension: the need to individualize case dispositions and the need to treat like cases alike so as to achieve “order.” As mirror and model, Japan can teach the United States how to improve the level of order in its own systems of criminal justice.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , 1998 , pp. 247 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by the Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Araki Jiro, David Bayley, Malcolm Feeley, Daniel Foote, John Haley, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Leo, Sheldon Messinger, Setsuo Miyazawa, David Nelken, Greg Noble, Mark Ramseyer, Jerome Skolnick, Yamashita Yukio, Frank Zimring, numerous Japanese prosecutors, and three anonymous reviewers for their help with this project. For their generous financial assistance I thank the Fulbright Foundation, the Earl Warren Legal Institute, and the Sho Sato U.S.-Japan Legal Studies Program of Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs.

References

Abe, Haruo (1968) “Shinkensatsukanron,” Chuo Koron, May, pp. 162–75.Google Scholar
Abegglen, James C., & Stalk, George Jr. (1985) Kaisha: The Japanese Corporation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Abrams, Norman (1971) “Internal Policy: Guiding the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion,” 19 UCLA Law Rev. 1–58.Google Scholar
Albonetti, Celesta A. (1987) “Prosecutorial Discretion: The Effects of Uncertainty,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 291–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alschuler, Albert W. (1968) “The Prosecutor's Role in Plea Bargaining,” 36 Univ. of Chicago Law Rev. 50–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amar, Akhil Reed (1997) The Constitution and Criminal Procedure: First Principles. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Ames, Walter L. (1981) Police and Community in Japan. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ando, Miwako (1995) “The Education and Training of Public Prosecutors in Japan,” Tokyo: Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, M. P. (1992) “The Myth of Discretion,” in Hawkins, , ed. 1992.Google Scholar
Bayley, David H. (1994) “Pursuing the Japanese Police” (Review Essay Rejoinder), 28 Law & Society Rev. 963–64.Google Scholar
Black, Donald (1989) Sociological Justice. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Blankenburg, Erhard (1994) “The Infrastructure for Avoiding Civil Litigation: Comparing Cultures of Legal Behavior in The Netherlands and West Germany,” 28 Law & Society Rev. 789–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, John (1989) Crime, Shame and Reintegration. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, David (1996) Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Carter, Lief H. (1974) The Limits of Order. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Clark, Rodney (1979) The Japanese Company. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Albert M. (1975) “Functional and Dysfunctional Aspects of Government Bureaucracy,” in Vogel, , ed. 1975b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damaska, Mirjan R. (1986) The Faces of Justice and State Authority: A Comparative Approach to the Legal Process. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Kenneth Culp (1969) Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Dore, Ronald (1978) Shinohata: A Portrait of a Japanese Village. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary (1986) How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Elster, John (1989) Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallows, James (1994) Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm M. (1973) “Two Models of the Criminal Justice System: An Organizational Perspective,” 7 Law & Society Rev. 407–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm M. (1983) Court Reform on Trial: Why Simple Solutions Fail. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm M.-(1987) “The Adversary System,” in Janosik, Robert J., ed., Encyclopedia of the American Judicial System. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm M.-(1992) The Process Is the Punishment. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Martha S. (1992) “Social Limits to Discretion: An Organizational Perspective,” in Hawkins, , ed. 1992.Google Scholar
Fingleton, Eamonn (1995) Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.Google Scholar
Fisher, Stanley Z. (1988) “In Search of the Virtuous Prosecutor: A Conceptual Framework,” 15 American J. of Criminal Law 197–261.Google Scholar
Flemming, Roy B., Nardulli, Peter F., & Eisenstein, James (1992) The Craft of Justice: Politics and Work in Court Communities. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foote, Daniel H. (1991) “Confessions and the Right to Silence in Japan,” 21 Georgia J. of International & Comparative Law 415–88.Google Scholar
Foote, Daniel H. (1992) “The Benevolent Paternalism of Japanese Criminal Justice,” 80 California Law Rev. 317–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foote, Daniel H. (1993) “From Japan's Death Row to Freedom,” 1 Pacific Rim Law & Policy J. 11–103.Google Scholar
Frank, Jerome (1949) Courts on Trial: Myth and Reality in American Justice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Frase, Richard S. (1990) “Comparative Criminal Justice as a Guide to American Law Reform: How Do the French Do It, How Can We Find Out, and Why Should We Care?” 78 California Law Rev. 539–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frohmann, Lisa G. (1992) “Screening Sexual Assault Cases: Prosecutorial Decisions to File or Reject Rape Complaints.” Ph.D. diss., UCLA Dept. of Sociology.Google Scholar
Garland, David (1990) Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1971) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Givelber, Daniel (1997) “Meaningless Acquittals, Meaningful Convictions: Do We Really Acquit the Innocent?” 49 Rutgers Law Rev. 1317–96.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1961) Asylum. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Golding, Martin P. (1975) Philosophy of Law. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Grano, Joseph D. (1993) Confessions, Truth, and the Law. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guarnieri, Carlo (1997) “Prosecution in Two Civil Law Countries: France and Italy,” in Nelken, D., ed., Comparing Legal Cultures. Aldershot, Eng.: Dartmouth Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hagan, John (1994) Crime and Disrepute. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haley, John O. (1991) Authority without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, V. Lee, & Sanders, Joseph (1992) Everyday Justice: Responsibility and the Individual in Japan and the United States. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Hardacre, Helen (1996) “Aum Shinrikyo and the Japanese Media.” Japan Policy Research Institute, Working Paper No. 19, April.Google Scholar
Hatano, Akira (1994) Tsuno o Tamete Ushi o Korosu Koto Nakare: Kensatsu Kenryoku wa Kokumin no Teki ka. Tokyo: Kobunsha.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Keith, ed. (1992) The Uses of Discretion. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Heilbroner, David (1990) Rough Justice: Days and Nights of a Young D.A. New York: Dell.Google Scholar
Hirano, Ryuichi (1989) “Diagnosis of the Current Code of Criminal Procedure” (trans. Daniel H. Foote), 22 Law in Japan 129–42.Google Scholar
Humes, Edward (1996) No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Ishimatsu, Takeo (1989) “Are Criminal Defendants in Japan Truly Receiving Trials by Judges?” (trans. Daniel H. Foote), 22 Law in Japan 143–53.Google Scholar
Itoh, Osamu (1994) “The Criminal Justice System in Japan: The Court.” Tokyo: UNAFEI.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert H. (1940) “The Federal Prosecutor,” 24 J. of the American Judicature Society 18–20.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers (1972) Conspiracy at Matsukawa. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, David T. (1996) “The Japanese Way of Justice: Prosecuting Crime in Japan.” Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law Program in Jurisprudence & Social Policy.Google Scholar
Johnson, David T.-(1997a) “Japan's Dazzling Acquittal Rates and the Procuracy's Pursuit of Perfection.” Harvard Univ. Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Center for International Affairs & the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, USJP Occasional Paper.Google Scholar
Johnson, David T. (1997b) “Why the Wicked Sleep: The Prosecution of Political Corruption in Postwar Japan.” Japan Policy Research Institute, Working Paper No. 34 (June).Google Scholar
Johnson, Phillip E. (1977) “Importing Justice,” 87 Yale Law J. 406–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawai, Nobutaro (1979) Kensatsu Tokuhon. Tokyo: Shoji Homu Kenkyukai.Google Scholar
Kawakami, Kazuo (1981) “Shakai Seigi to Kensatsu: Gendai ni okeru Kensatsu no Yakuwari,” Hogaku Semina Zokan, August, pp. 19–28.Google Scholar
Kawasaki, Hideaki (1991) “Kensatsukanron no Kadai: Sengo no Kensatsu to Keiji Shiho,” in Keiji Sosho no Gendai teki Doko. Tokyo: Sanshodo.Google Scholar
Kawashima, Takeyoshi (1967) Nihonjin no Ho Ishiki. Tokyo: Iwanami.Google Scholar
Kensatsu Kogian (1991) Tokyo: Homusho Keijikyoku.Google Scholar
Klinger, David A. (1997) “Negotiating Order in Patrol Work: An Ecological Theory of Police Response to Deviance,” 35 Criminology 277–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kubo, Hiroshi (1989) Nippon no Kensatsu. Tokyo: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Kurata, Seiji, et al. (1992) “Iwayuru Rainichi Gaikokujin ni yoru Setto Jihan no Kenkyu.” Tokyo: Nihonkoku Homusho Homu Sogo Kenkyusho.Google Scholar
Langbein, John H. (1995) “The Influence of Comparative Procedure in the United States,” 43 American J. of Comparative Law 545–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langbein, John H., & Weinreb, Lloyd L. (1978) “Continental Criminal Procedure: ‘Myth’ and Reality,” 87 Yale Law J. 1549–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Edward H. (1969) An Introduction to Legal Reasoning. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lincoln, James R., & Kalleberg, Arne L. (1990) Culture, Control, and Commitment: A Study of Work Organization and Work Attitudes in the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin (1996) American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Littrell, W. Boyd (1979) Bureaucratic Justice: Police, Prosecutors, and Plea Bargaining. Beverly Hills, GA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. (1992) “‘Big-Bang’ Decisions: Notes on a Naturalistic Approach,” in Hawkins, , ed. 1992.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Ichiro (1981) “Kensatsukan no Dokuritsu-Ittai Gensoku,” Hogaku Semina Zokan, August, p. 301.Google Scholar
Merryman, John Henry (1985) The Civil Law Tradition. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Government of Japan Ministry of Justice (1986) Kenji: Sono Sugao. Tokyo: Homusho Keijikyoku Somuka.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Richard H. (1976) Thought Control in Prewar Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Richard H.-(1992) Janus-Faced Justice: Political Criminals in Imperial Japan. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitsui, Makoto (1979) “Sengo no Kensatsu,” Juristo, 15 Sept., pp. 214–20.Google Scholar
Miyamoto, Masao (1994) Straitjacket Society: An Insider's Irreverent View of Bureaucratic Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Miyazawa, Setsuo (1992) Policing in Japan: A Study on Making Crime. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Norval (1978) Review of Lloyd Weinreb's Denial of Justice, 91 Harvard Law Rev. 1367–71.Google Scholar
Mukaidani, Susumu (1993) Chiken Tokusobu. Tokyo: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Nagel, Ilene H., & Schulhofer, Stephen J. (1992) “A Tale of Three Cities: An Empirical Study of Charging and Bargaining Practices under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines,” 66 Southern California Law Rev. 501–66.Google Scholar
Nakane, Chie (1970) Japanese Society. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Nardulli, Peter F., Eisenstein, James, & Flemming, Roy B. (1988) The Tenor of Justice: Criminal Courts and the Guilty Plea Process. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Nomura, Jiro (1978) Kenji: Kenryoku tojinken. Tokyo: Kyoikusha.Google Scholar
Nomura, Jiro-(1988) Nihon no Kensatsu: Saiko no Kenryoku no Uchigawa. Tokyo: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Nomura, Jiro (1994) Nihon no Kensatsukan. Tokyo: Waseda Keiei Shuppan.Google Scholar
Ohlin, Lloyd E. (1993) “Surveying Discretion by Criminal Justice Decision Makers,” in Ohlin, & Remington, , eds. 1993.Google Scholar
Ohlin, Lloyd E., & Remington, Frank J., eds. (1993) Discretion in Criminal Justice: The Tension between Individualization and Uniformity. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.Google Scholar
Omiya, Kenichiro (1994) Ji-Sha Renritsu Seiken: Seijika, Kanryo Jinmyaku Chizu. Tokyo: Futabasha.Google Scholar
Pharr, Susan (1990) Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Pizzi, William T. (1993) “Understanding Prosecutorial Discretion in the United States: The Limits of Comparative Criminal Procedure as an Instrument of Reform,” 54 Ohio State Law J. 1325–73.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark, & Rosenbluth, Frances McCall (1993) Japan's Political Marketplace. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Reischauer, Edwin O. (1977) The Japanese. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.Google Scholar
Remington, Frank J. (1993) “The Decision to Charge, the Decision to Convict on a Plea of Guilty, and the Impact of Sentence Structure on Prosecution Practices,” in Ohlin, & Remington, , eds. 1993.Google Scholar
Rohlen, Thomas P. (1974) For Harmony and Strength: Japanese White-Collar Organization in Anthropological Perspective. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosett, Arthur, & Cressey, Donald R. (1976) Justice by Consent: Plea Bargains in the American Courthouse. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.Google Scholar
Sayle, Murray (1996) “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” New Yorker, 1 April, pp. 56–61.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1984) The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy. New York: Longmans.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1991) The Politics of Street Crime: Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Selznick, Philip (1957) Leadership in Administration. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.Google Scholar
Seto, Shuzo (1983) Homu-Kensatsu Ura no lira. Tokyo: Doyukan.Google Scholar
Sherman, Lawrence (1993) “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal Sanction,” 30 J. of Research in Crime & Delinquency 445–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silberman, Charles E. (1978) Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. (1975) Justice without Trial: Law Enforcement in a Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Smith, Arlo (1995) “The City's DA Responds to the Examiner Series,” San Francisco Examiner, 17 Sept.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert J. (1983) Japanese Society: Tradition, Self and the Social Order. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Spohn, Cassia, Gruhl, John, & Welch, Susan (1987) “The Impact of the Ethnicity and Gender of Defendants on the Decision to Reject or Dismiss Felony Charges,” 25 Criminology 175–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinhoff, Patricia G. (1993) “Pursuing the Japanese Police,” 27 Law & Society Rev. 827–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinhoff, Patricia G. (1991) Tenko: Ideology and Societal Integration in Prewar Japan. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Stewart, James B. (1987) The Prosecutors: Inside the Offices of the Governments Most Powerful Lawyers. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Suchman, Mark C., & Edelman, Lauren B. (1996) “Legal Rational Myths: The New Institutionalism and the Law and Society Tradition,” 21 Law & Social Inquiry 903–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugimoto, Yoshio (1997) An Introduction to Japanese Society. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Tachibana, Takashi (1993) Kyoaku vs. Genron. Tokyo: Bungeishunju.Google Scholar
Tadaki, Keiichi (1981) “Kensatsu Soshiki Tokiko,” Hogaku Semina Zokan, August, pp. 170–79.Google Scholar
Takahashi, Hidemine (1992) Tokyo Gaikokujin Saiban. Tokyo: Heibonsha.Google Scholar
Taylor, Lawrence (1996) The D.A.: A True Story. New York: William Morrow & Co.Google Scholar
Thompson, James (1967) Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co.Google Scholar
Thompson, Michael, Ellis, Richard, & Wildavsky, Aaron (1990) Cultural Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Tojo, Shinichiro (1968) “The Prosecutor's Discretion and Its Control in Japan and the United States.” Master of Laws Thesis, Boalt Hall School of Law, Univ. of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Tonry, Michael (1995) Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Uematsu, Tadashi (1981) “Koeki no Daihyosha,” Hogaku Semina Zokan, August, pp. 160–61.Google Scholar
Utz, Pamela J. (1978) Settling the Facts: Discretion and Negotiation in Criminal Court. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Vogel, Ezra F. (1975a) “Introduction: Toward More Accurate Concepts,” in Vogel, , ed. 1975b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Ezra F., ed. (1975b) Modem Japanese Organization and Decision-Making. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vorenberg, James (1981) “Decent Restraint of Prosecutorial Power,” 94 Harvard Law Rev. 1521–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Samuel (1993) Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in Criminal Justice, 1950–1990. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weigend, Thomas (1980) “Continental Cures for American Ailments: European Criminal Procedure as a Model for Law Reform,” in Morris, N. & Tonry, M., eds., Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Weinreb, Lloyd L. (1977) Denial of Justice: Criminal Process in the United States. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Weninger, Robert A. (1987) “The Abolition of Plea Bargaining: A Case Study of El Paso County, Texas,” 35 UCLA Law Rev. 311.Google Scholar
White, Merry (1987) The Japanese Educational Challenge: A Commitment to Children. Tokyo: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. (1989) Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Winokur, Scot (1995) “Mr. District Attorney,” San Francisco Examiner (4 parts), 10–13 Sept.Google Scholar
Wolferen, Karel van (1989) The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Wolferen, Karel van-(1994) Ningen o Kofuku ni Shinai Nihon to Iu Shisutemu. Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha.Google Scholar
Zimring, Franklin E., & Frase, Richard S. (1980) The Criminal Justice System: Materials on the Administration and Reform of the Criminal Law. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar