Miura’s counsel presents expert on Japanese law

Kazuyoshi Miura’s legal counsel has presented to the court the opinion of a Japanese law and criminal procedure expert who said that, based on his research and investigation, Japanese courts are extremely reluctant to take the side of a criminal defendant.

William Bernard Cleary, an American lawyer who is currently a professor at Hiroshima Shudo University’s Faculty of Law, said his research show that the rate of “not guilty” judgments in Japan was 2.9 percent in 2007 and was 0.1 percent for 1998, which was the year of the appeal in Miura’s case.

In his affidavit, Cleary said the study shows that Japanese courts do a comprehensive investigation concerning all relevant facts and evidence.

Miura’s counsel sought Cleary’s opinion to clarify whether the issues brought up in the documents recently filed by the Attorney General’s Office to oppose modifying the Japanese businessman’s bail are essentially the same issues dealt with in the Tokyo High Court judgment of July 1, 1998, regarding Miura’s appeal.

Cleary’s opinion was among the exhibits in Miura’s application for bail that his counsel, Bruce Berline, filed in the Superior Court yesterday.

In an affidavit that the AGO attached to its opposition to Miura’s bail modification, Los Angeles Police District detective Rick Jackson stated that Miura approached three people to commit murder prior to the shooting of his wife on Nov. 18, 1981 in L.A.

Jackson said that Miura asked Koji Fukuhara, a sushi chef; Kiyoyuki Mizukami, a former employee of Miura’s company; and Richard Molin, an antique shop owner, to kill someone.

But Cleary said that, in his opinion the facts and issues addressed by the Tokyo District and High Court are essentially the same as those presented in Jackson’s affidavit.

Moreover, Cleary said, as part of the evidence evaluated by the court was a list of possible co-conspirators, including Fukuhara and Mizukami. Cleary said Fukuhara and Mizukami were mentioned in the document for the purpose of showing that Miura is a dangerous person not worthy of bail.

“However, the Japanese courts examined this evidence, and the High Court was not convinced that any crime had been committed,” he pointed out.

Cleary is currently on active status as an attorney in California. He is also admitted to practice law in New York, West Virginia, Federated States of Micronesia, and Guam. He is the first American to obtain a Ph.D. from Hokkaido University in Japanese Public Law.

From April 2004 to March 31, 2008, Cleary was employed as an associate professor of law at the Iwate University in Morioka Japan, where he lectured on subjects of criminal procedure and comparative law.

Miura had already been convicted in Japan in 1994 for the murder of his wife, Kazumi. The verdict, however, was overturned by Japan’s high court in 1998.

Saipan authorities arrested the 60-year-old Miura at the Saipan International Airport last Feb. 21 in connection with the 1981 murder of Kazumi. He has been in detention since his arrest and is fighting his extradition to L.A.