One of the criteria the judges used to reach their conclusion is something called the “rule of experience” (keikensoku), and Kamenaga states that a man’s experience in this case is different from a woman’s, since men are rarely victims of groping.
Consequently, the judges thought it was likely that the girl made up the story. They speculated that “most groping victims perhaps haven’t really experienced groping,” thus suggesting that what they really experienced was nothing more than unavoidable close contact. The judges said that groping on crowded trains tends to be an impulsive act, and the girl’s description of the alleged perpetrator’s focus on her didn’t jibe with what they felt was the normal modus operandi of train gropers. At one point, she was forced off the packed train by the crowd and then re-boarded it right next to the professor, who she said then resumed fondling her. What bothered the judges about the victim’s version of events is that she endured the groping “without doing anything about it” and then didn’t bring the alleged groper to the police until almost the end of the line, after the train had stopped at a number of stations. It is one person’s word against another, which is why the vast majority of on-site apprehensions ( genko taiho) are made by the victims themselves.
What makes groping cases different from most other crimes is that it is almost impossible to have a witness. Based on the judges’ opinions, she concludes that it was the victim who was on trial.
#Tokyo school life grope trial#
Nobuko Kamenaga starts off hers by saying that the “iron rule” of a criminal trial is that the benefit of the doubt should favor the suspect, but such a premise assumes that the suspect is the person on trial. A recent issue of Kinyobi ran several essays by women writers who think the judges were prejudiced.