At the time of the Kyoto Animation Incident, I believe that all of Japan was calling for the maximum penalty (death penalty) for the perpetrators with a burning hatred.

Well, even now, I don't think this hatred has subsided.

However, it is also mentioned here,

No matter how brutal the murder, and no matter how consistent the prosecution, defense, and both sides are in finding the case--

A suspect in a murder case should be judged on the amount of sentence after the defense has exhausted all possible defenses.

Especially when it comes to the extreme penalty of the death sentence, we have to be given the maximum opportunity to defend ourselves, to say, like 'I can't defend myself anymore.'

This is the principle of the rule of law system.

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I have another way of looking at it other than this principle of a legal system.

It is the scientific elucidation of the criminal mind.

I think it would be worthwhile to understand why these crimes were committed -- to understand the process technically, scientifically, and engineeringly.

This is because I believe that if we can "visualize" the psychology of criminals through this approach, it will help to create a "social model that does not generate the same criminals.

Therefore, even after the death penalty has been passed, interviews (information gathering) should continue to be conducted with death row inmates, and thorough clarifications should be made.

In that sense, the "Aum Shinrikyo case, execution of seven people on the same day" was unfortunate.

I remember feeling as if valuable materials were being burned.

I have been writing about the "United Red Army" and "Aum," but I can't seem to think of them as "other people's business,"

"What was it that separated them from me?"

Even now, I keep thinking about it.

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If you ask, "Is Ebata an opponent of the death penalty?" I would say the opposite.

I do not have such a sense of humanism or human rights.

(Although, as a citizen who does not oppose the death penalty, I do believe that 'I must see executions with my own eyes.')

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Once we get all the data we can from the death row inmates, and we decide, 'There's nothing more to come out of it,'

I hope that the death row inmate is considered to have "completed what needs to be done" and that he is then promptly and solemnly executed with the fixed sentence provided for by current law.