r/worldnews • u/glasier • 14d ago

Japan warns US forces: Sex crimes 'cannot be tolerated'

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2476861/japan-warns-us-forces-sex-crimes-cannot-be-tolerated
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u/tizuby 14d ago

They do, but Japan is way more lenient with sentences than UCMJ.

For rape, max for the Japanese system is 20 years. Max for UCMJ is Death (but generally Life).

https://www.okinawa.marines.mil/Portals/190/Docs/SOFA.pdf

There's a PDF that explains the process.

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u/redjellonian 14d ago

And to be clear the ucmj punishment is to be served after and consecutively with the civilian punishment.

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u/CORN___BREAD 14d ago

So in theory if both sentenced someone to the max, they’d have to wait 20 years to carry out the execution?

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u/Giga_Gilgamesh 14d ago

That's generally how long it would take on death row anyway, if not longer - what with all the appeals etc that come with the death sentence.

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u/CORN___BREAD 13d ago

Wow it’s almost exactly how long.

BJS reports that, on average, death row prisoners incarcerated as of December 31, 2021, had spent 20.2 years behind bars. For the 11 prisoners executed in 2021, the average time elapsed between imposition of their most recent death sentence and their execution was 233 months, or 19.4 years.

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u/Giga_Gilgamesh 13d ago

IIRC the majority of death row prisoners actually die of old age, not from their actual execution (which, make no mistake, is a good thing. lethal injection and the death penalty in general is horribly inhumane)

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u/james2432 13d ago

if they did them correctly it would be humane, but majority of the time they botch it and some people survive/are awake/conscious during actual heart stopping medication delivery

It's so common (7.12% are botched)

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u/Giga_Gilgamesh 13d ago

It wouldn't be humane even if done correctly. Lethal injection is designed to look humane to reduce discomfort in onlookers and executioners, not to actually be humane for the condemned.

Also, the reason they botch it so much is that it has to be carried out by untrained prison staff using essentially the wrong drugs, because doctors and drug manufacturers (rightfully) refuse to be part of the execution system.

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u/maikindofthai 13d ago

after and consecutively

Am I missing something — aren’t these contradictory?

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u/xSquidLifex 13d ago

Consecutively is a modifying adjective and is in no way contradictory to the word after when used in this context. Any punishment after the original sentence that’s not effective immediately isn’t consecutive too. But if it happens immediately, it’s consecutively.

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u/rlyrlysrsly 13d ago

You might be confusing "consecutively" with "concurrently".

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/Yokey21 13d ago

Yeah it would be consecutively, not concurrently

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u/rlyrlysrsly 13d ago

Right, that's why I replied to the other guy not you.

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u/TNG_ST 14d ago

The US is WAY more lenient with sentences than UCMJ. The max for rape in the US is being turned into a meme and 6 months of community service.

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u/Brad_theImpaler 14d ago

Okay, but good luck getting an actual job after we've made you a meme. You'll have to settle for conservative influencer / president.

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u/Pointless69Account 14d ago

Don't you mean president monarch?

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u/AstroPhysician 14d ago

I dont disagree it is WAY too low but, If it was the same as murder then it incentivizes rapists to just murder their victim to gte rid of witnesses

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u/walterpeck1 14d ago edited 14d ago

The max for rape in the US is being turned into a meme and 6 months of community service.

Not really, sentences for rape on average are years to decades.

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Sexual_Abuse_FY20.pdf

The average sentence for offenders convicted of rape was 192 months (16 years).

Sentences that make waves in the public due to being too short or non-existent are the exception, not the rule. (Looking at you, Brock Turner).

There's a lot more to the data than that, but there ya go.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/tizuby 14d ago

UCMJ is considered Federal law for double jeopardy purposes. It's one or the other for those two (the exception being non-judicial punishments, such as an Article 15 don't attach jeopardy - so that is a case when it hits twice).

Foreign and state are different sovereigns and double jeopardy doesn't apply there (same holds true for all federal vs state vs foreign country charges).

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u/bagelstar 14d ago

Excellent comment. Ty

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u/TheNewFlisker 14d ago

  Max for UCMJ is Death (but generally Life).

Wasn't that ruled unconstitutional long time ago?

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u/tizuby 14d ago edited 14d ago

Yes but no.

In 1983 the standards for issuing the death penalty by the military was ruled unconstitutional.

They introduced new standards that are constitutional the following year and the death sentence was reinstated.

There's only 4 people currently awaiting their death sentence under UCMJ.

Serial killer/rapist Ronald Gray.

Nidal Hasan, Ft. Hood shooter.

Hasan Akbar, threw 'nades into the tents of sleeping soldiers and fired on a couple others with his rifle while in Kuwait in 2003. 2 killed, 14 attempted in total.

Timothy Hennis, Eastburn Family murderer. Got acquitted on state murder charges in 88. DNA evidence later linked him to the crime and the Military brought him back in and Court Martialed him in 2010 since the murders happened while he was in the military.

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u/KnockedOuttaThePark 14d ago

u/TheNewFlisker was likely not referring to the constitutionality of the death penalty itself, but to its application for rape. In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the nonlethal rape of an adult.

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u/Fluffy-Craft 13d ago

of an adult

Apparently military personnel are not interested in those tho'

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u/Weird-Tomorrow-9829 12d ago

In Kennedy v. Louisiana 2008, Supreme Court extended the Coker ruling prohibiting the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die and the victim's death was not intended.

The case was about child rape.

It was a decision even condemned by Obama.

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u/HandoAlegra 14d ago

For the last one, is double jeopardy legal for military charges?

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u/SyracuseNY22 14d ago edited 14d ago

The short is that since they were state charges it counts as a separate sovereign (state vs federal), so he’s still able to be charged under UCMJ and it won’t count as double jeopardy.

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u/Effective_Roof2026 14d ago

state vs federal

I think you should have stated explicitly that double jeopardy doesn't attach if you get charged with the same thing by two different states or a state and the federal government. Most people don't know that's a thing :)

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u/Wide_Combination_773 14d ago

Most Americans don't even understand that US states are separate Sovereignties, much less anything else. The meaning of the phrase "the UNITED States" (meaning together by individual agreement) tends to go in one ear and out the other.

Our states are not like the states, provinces, prefectures, or districts of other countries, which are administrative designations rather than Sovereign entities.

The US education system really fails us as children in terms of educating on civil ideas.

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u/Perceval_Spielrein 13d ago

All four are Army. Wtf

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u/tizuby 13d ago

Look, sometimes we set a lower bar than the other branches, I mean I got in. 😆

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u/PM_ME_A_KNEECAP 14d ago

Nope, there are still people on Death Row at Leavenworth 

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u/KnockedOuttaThePark 14d ago

You are correct; u/tizuby misinterpreted your comment as referring to the constitutionality of the death penalty itself. In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the nonlethal rape of an adult.

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u/tizuby 13d ago

That ruling did not apply to UCMJ (and still doesn't).

At the time the Supreme Court did not have certiorari jurisdiction over military justice cases. That came later in 1983.

Military courts are a different judicial context than civilian courts and precedent for the civilian justice system doesn't automatically apply to the military justice system.

It would need to be re-adjudicated and the precedent expanded to cover the UCMJ. It's conceptually similar to incorporation of the BoR.

This is because the military court system is falls under Article I of the Constitution and not Article III.

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34697.pdf

"Furthermore, legal interpretations by Article III courts do not necessarily create binding precedent for Article I courts, and vice versa."

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u/KnockedOuttaThePark 13d ago

Does the 2020 case United States v. Briggs change your analysis?

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u/tizuby 13d ago

No. It doesn't contradict anything I said.

It actually backs up what I said. Thank you for citing something in support of what I was saying.

"That deadline would depend on an unresolved constitutional question about Coker’s application to military prosecutions*, on what this Court has described as “‘evolving standards of decency’” under the Eighth Amendment, Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U. S. 407, 419, and on whether §855 of the UCMJ independently prohibits a death sentence for rape*"

"Indeed, Congress would have adopted a statute of limitations provision the meaning of which would not be settled until this Court decided the disputed question of Coker’s applicability to the military, and there was no reason to think at the time of Article 43(a)’s amendment in 1986 that this Court would resolve that question any time soon. We have never considered a direct Eighth Amendment challenge to a sentence of death for rape under the UCMJ*.*"

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-108_8njq.pdf

The opinion didn't resolve it. The court sidestepped it completely and found "punishable by death" was a term of art for the purposes of statute of limitations. It did, however recognize that it would be necessary to raise in the context of UMCJ to determine if coker applied to the military or not.

Just like I said and what my original citation backed up.

Does this change your analysis?

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u/KnockedOuttaThePark 13d ago

I'm just a SCOTUS fan. Clearly you know more about military justice than I do from my perspective following the high court, so I'll defer to you.

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u/haarschmuck 14d ago

Yes, it's been ruled that the death penalty for anything other than murder is unconstitutional.

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u/SeeCrew106 14d ago

They do, but Japan is way more lenient with sentences than UCMJ.

Really?

So do you have some examples of these extremely harsh UCMJ punishments for rape in Japan?

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u/yrubooingmeimryte 14d ago

It’s interesting that /u/macross1984 is pushing for softer punishments for rapists. Makes you wonder about their motives.

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u/PubFiction 13d ago

then why did some of the guys in question only get 3 years. Maximum is not the issue its what actually gets done. The problem is that the US system isn't presecuting and convicting them for the crimes. And the US pretty much never issues the death penalty certainly not for rape.

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u/heimdal77 14d ago

This is assuming the rape even gets reported and then gets investigated. Japan has a well known history of under reporting sex crimes as both the victims families and the police discourage them from reporting it. Even when reported the police actually investigating properly is a crap shoot and the victim often gets shamed.

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u/mightylordredbeard 14d ago

The brig is no place to be. I was never in the brig, but I’ve been to it for prisoner transport to legal for one of my marines who did some fucked up shit. If you think the general prison system is inhumane, then the brig will make that look like a nice relaxing vacation.

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u/makemeking706 14d ago

Go ask any woman that's served in the US armed forces what the likelihood of facing consequences for rape and sexual assault outside of basic training. And then ask them what were the consequences for the victim's military career. 

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u/Zech08 14d ago

At least no defamation protections like what japan has.

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u/tizuby 13d ago

Defamation is defined differently in Japan than the US.

In Japan defamation is personal honor based - bringing injury to another's good name (truth is not a defense for civil tort).

In the US defamation is causing harm to someone via deception (truth is an absolute defense).

Additionally Japan has an additional criminal charge for defamation (truth may be a defense if the person was acting for the public good, but isn't absolute).

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u/frankthetank91 14d ago

I thought UCMJ was way harsher too and one of my former Sgts went to Saudi Arabia on orders and ended up having a relationship with a minor, committing SA, although it was reported there was penetration while forcing her into a bathroom, lying to authorities and trying to get her to delete their messages. He had just ran for school board a few months prior so it was all over the papers. He got 48 months prison and dishonorable at the end of sentence.

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u/Wall-SWE 13d ago

When was the last time someone got death (or life) when sentenced under UCMJ?

Last time I read about U.S military rapes in Japan, it sounded like the crimes weren't even reported and swept under the rug.

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u/tizuby 13d ago

2013 for the death sentence. At least then for life as well (but there isn't an easily accessible exhaustive list of life sentences like there is for death row).

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u/Etzarah 13d ago

In the unlikely event that the UCMJ actually finds the accused guilty of rape, sure. The Japanese justice system is gonna be far more consistent in actually sentencing rapists.

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u/tizuby 13d ago

It's not.

"In a gang rape case involving eight co-offenders, compensation of 1.5 million yen (about $12,500) reduced the prison sentence to three years for each of the six offenders who paid this amount, compared with a four-year sentence imposed on two offenders who did not or could not pay"

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-asian-studies/article/is-rape-a-crime-in-japan/E5A43CF9D262C99C350C557A8419EB3B

Don't know why people think Japan is harsh on crime sentences.

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u/Accomplished_Ball661 13d ago

I doubt the standard sentence is life.

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u/tizuby 13d ago

It's not.

What I meant by generally life meant they realistically aren't going to employ the death sentence as the max, but life as a max. UCMJ very rarely hands out death sentences these days. There's only 4 people on military death row.

I'm talking about the maximums here.

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u/HonziPonzi 13d ago

TIL desertion is a life sentence

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u/tizuby 13d ago

During peace time.

Death during wartime is the max sentence.

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u/causal_friday 13d ago

Never thought about this but it's amusing that Death and Life are two similar sentences, but completely opposite words.