Osaka Prosecutors Demand Punishment of Defense Lawyer for Releasing Videotape of Confession to Media

Media info collecting at stake? / Case raises questions over laws on evidence use, The Japan News (June 23, 2013):

A demand by Osaka [Japan] prosecutors that a lawyer be punished for providing a copy of a DVD of video records of questioning by investigators to NHK has sent shock waves through the legal profession and the media.
...

The trial was for a case involving inflicting injury resulting in death. One point of dispute was whether an investigation report by prosecutors was trustworthy. The report said the defendant confessed to strangling the victim.

The prosecutors office submitted the DVD as evidence. However, in July 2011, the Osaka District Court denied the credibility of the prosecutors’ report based on the defendant’s responses in the DVD, and ruled he was not guilty.

After the ruling was finalized, NHK received a copy of the DVD from Sadamoto and aired part of the video while concealing the man’s face in the “Kansai Netsu Shisen” news program on April 5.

&&& The dynamic evidence page

Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan