Law How one man got off death row in a country with a 99% conviction rate Hakamada Iwao spent almost 50 years in prison. It took decades for him to receive an astonishing exoneration

O n a hushed winter afternoon in Hamamatsu, a seaside city in central Japan, an octogenarian goes for a walk. His gait is peculiar, almost mechanical, and his body jolts with each small step. His stiff arms swing by his sides, not quite in sync with his legs. A padded green coat swallows his frame. Beneath a soft brown fedora is a plump, round face.

Two women flank him as he enters a library. He pauses at a vending machine; something about it seems to speak a language only he can hear. Juice, soda, coffee, corn soup, tea: he presses many buttons in quick succession. Fumbling, he tries to feed in too many notes, until one of the women gently helps him. Two cans of sweetened coffee clatter into the tray.

He begins to drift through the library’s aisles. Eventually, the women guide him to a bench by the window. They hand him a photo book of cats. He turns the pages slowly: a kitten curled up in a bowl, another basking in a sunbeam. Although he doesn’t smile, he looks fixated and hardly says anything. He seems like a spirit left behind in a hollowed-out shell.

In 1966, Hakamada Iwao was arrested on the charge of murdering his boss, his boss’s wife and their two teenage children. He was later convicted of the crime and spent much of the next 58 years on death row, locked alone in a cell no bigger than a parking space. Every morning he woke up not knowing whether that day would be his last.

Although he doesn’t smile, he looks fixated and hardly says anything. He seems like a spirit left behind in a hollowed-out shell

In September 2024 a court acquitted Hakamada, who was then 88. Such a reversal after a defendant had served so many years in prison would be unusual anywhere. But in Japan, the conviction rate is over 99% for cases that go to trial; in some years it has been as high as 99.9%. This makes Hakamada’s case astonishing. What’s more, the court also declared that the police and prosecutors had fabricated the evidence that led to his conviction. In March 2025 he was awarded 217m yen ($1.45m) in compensation—the largest-ever payout for a criminal case in the country’s history.

“When the judge read out ‘not guilty’, his voice sounded divine,” Hakamada Hideko, Hakamada’s 92-year-old sister, told me. “I’m not someone who cries, but the tears just came.” It is not clear whether Hakamada—who suffers severe symptoms of koukinsho, or “detention syndrome”, as a result of his prolonged solitary confinement—understands the significance of the court’s decision, for himself or Japan’s justice system.

I first met Hakamada in late 2022. I had seen videos of interviews where he appeared fragile but composed, like someone I could have a conversation with. But when my colleague and I arrived at his home, he stayed in another room the entire time. I said hello to him but he did not respond; I couldn’t tell if he registered that I was there. Only then did I realise those clips had been carefully stitched together, lending him an air of coherence that didn’t really exist.

I spoke instead with Hideko, who cares for him and had long served as his advocate. Sprightly and sharp, she recounted half a century of injustice with unwavering conviction. I remember thinking that without her support, Hakamada might have rotted away in that narrow cell. Over time, she became the nucleus of a network of lawyers, activists and ordinary people that helped bring about his acquittal.

The comforts of home Hakamada Iwao was the world’s longest serving death-row inmate. Hakamada’s sister, Hideko, has spent her life fighting for her brother’s acquittal (top). Ino Machiko also helps care for Hakamada (middle). Hakamada has a cherished collection of stuffed animals (bottom)

At this point, Hakamada seems more comfortable with inanimate objects than with people; his bedroom is filled with plush toys. When I visited him again this past February to tag along on his walk, I brought him a shiba inu stuffed animal at the suggestion of one of his carers. After I nervously handed it to him, he quietly said doumo (“thank you”), examined it for a while and put it in his pocket. That was the only meaningful interaction I have managed to have with him.

“He abandoned reality a long time ago to escape to an idealised, fantasy world,” said Ino Machiko, one of the women who accompanies Hakamada on his daily outings. “He couldn’t possibly come back to reality now, and take in what he had gone through. That would be too much.”

H akamada Iwao was born in 1936 in Hamamatsu, a city in Shizuoka, a coastal prefecture known for green-tea fields and clear sightlines to Mount Fuji. The youngest of six siblings, Hakamada was a “calm and gentle boy”, according to Hideko; the two were close growing up.

Hakamada’s family was not wealthy, and he began working after graduating from school, around the age of 15. A few years later, he fell in love with boxing. Though never a household name, he achieved modest success and set a record in 1960 for fighting the most matches in a year: 19. That figure, which remains unsurpassed in Japan, is “absolutely unthinkable today”, said Nitta Shosei from the Japan Pro Boxing Association. “What makes it even more remarkable is that he mostly went the full distance in these fights…he was slugging it out for multiple rounds, taking punches, getting back up.”

He was later convicted of the crime and spent much of the next 58 years on death row, locked alone in a cell no bigger than a parking space

But his body quickly began to break down, forcing him to quit professional boxing after just a few yea