1991 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Role of Lawyers in Criminal Justice
| Project/Area Number |
01520029
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Criminal law
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| Research Institution | Chiba University |
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Principal Investigator |
MURAYAMA Masayuki Chiba Univ., Faculty of Law & Economics Associate Professor, 法経学部, 助教授 (30157804)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1989 – 1990
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| Keywords | Lawyer / Criminal Defense / Court-Appointed Counsel / Criminal Justice / Legal Profession / Legal Service |
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| Research Abstract |
My survey research in Tokyo shows that major fields of the lawyers are those of real estates owned by individuals, inheritance, divorce, and those of small companies. Though legal service for large corporations seem to increase with the rapid expansion of the international affairs field, it does not seem to have changed the basic structure of the legal work in Tokyo.
2. The number of lawyers who handle criminal cases seem to be decreasing. Lawyers who work as court-appointed counsels occupy less than 20% of the lawyers registered at the three bar associations in Tokyo. Most of them are junior bar members with 10 years experience or less, old lawyers, and a rather small number of experienced lawyers with personal interests in criminal defense work. In contrast, retained-counsel work is taken by a wide range of lawyers as work similar to ordinary civil cases.
3. Court-appointed counsels do not seem to work as actively as retained-counsels. However, it may simply reflect the nature of most court-appointed counsel cases in which the defendants confessed to the Police and do not contest against the prosecutors. On this point, we have to further clarify the relationship between defense activity and the nature of a case.
4. When we compare the Tokyo situation with the American counterpart in the 1910's in which the public defender system emerged, we find some problems of court-appointed counsel system somewhat similar. However, the Japanese solution rfiay be different from that of the U. S., since the Japanese bar organizations are dominated by solo or small office practitioners who have traditional professional values different from business lawyers.
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