Marine "Persecuted, not Prosecuted" in Japan

[Mulboyne]

News10: Woman Believes Son was Unfairly Punished for Crime in Japan
A Marine general and an Auburn mother are asserting the woman's Marine son is being unduly punished for a crime he committed while stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Lance Corporal Josh Major, 26, is serving four-and-a-half years of forced labor in a Japanese prison for assaulting a 20-year-old Okinawa man without provocation two years ago...Major initially drew a two-year suspended sentence for the assault. But the prosecution appealed the sentences and convinced a higher court [he] should get stiffer punishment. A U.S. military trial observer said the prosecutor's argument was laced with anti-American rhetoric. Teresa Boyd, Major's mother, admits her son was wrong to beat up the man. "Such a dishonor," she said... "It was bad, it was mean...But it's nowhere near the severity of a crime that would get a four-and-a-half year sentence for the first offense in America." The commanding Marine general...appears to concur...writing, "the high court's unprecedented harsh sentence clearly indicates a bias by the court against the accused."

[Watcher]

Bah! Does it indicate a bias by the court against the accused or does it indicate a plague of lieniency in the US courts? My thoughts are that no guest of any country (and the US military are most certainly guests) should be given extra courtesy. In fact they should be giving more courtesy to their hosts. Was it really without provocation? Probably not... but these men and women of the US military should hold themselves to higher standards (and the majority do).
He was over there to do a job. No where in that job description does "beating a native" get mentioned. If the military cannot control their own members than the hosts (be it Japan, Corea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc. etc.) will do it for them.
Was he made an example of? Probably. Do we have the right to debate that and accuse them of bias? Definitely not.
Same goes for the rapists and vandals down there giving all Americans a bad name.

[Big Booger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_law

Scroll down to criminal law... only 8% of assault cases in Japan warranted 1-2 years of hard labor imprisonment.....

4.5 years is not even listed.... but of course that data comes from 1994 so things might be different.

I think he should receive the exact same punishment that a first-time offender of assault in Japan would receive. There should be no special treatment, nor should there be any persecution as well. Fair, just and equal, the law should be.

[Naniwan Kid]

If you don`t want to spend time in a Japan prison then don`t commit crimes in Japan.

`nuff said.

[amdg]

[Reddeville]

Ah, yes, the mythical `guest of Japan` excuse that can be used to justify the backwards legal system of the host culture. In my country of Oz a Japanese man murdered a backpacker at the place they were both staying.

Did Aussies start screaming about Japanese people abusing their rights as guests in the country? Did they make racist generalisations of how those Japanese can`t be trusted, they are all smiles and then lash out and murder people? No. The media was very fair.

The Japanese prick who did it (I don`t know what went on) would have a much better time in an Aussie jail than a foreigner falsely convicted under the 200 years ago timewarp `Justice system` here. No orders about which side to sleep on, a good number of visits, phonecalls, access to lawyers who actually work for you, interrogation by police with a lawyer present, no being held without a charge etc.

The Japanese screaming and bleating continuously about us criminal gaijin should be shutting their big mouths full of too many teeth and thanking heavens that we are not as crude, backwards and lacking in the human essentials as they are. They are as guilty as their system because they not only tolerate its abuses but openly support its barbaric practices.

I only hope the Japanese guy gets some rough justice from his fellow inmates if he is in an Aussie prison.