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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

>"Japan's conviction rate is above 99%."

Although this figure is is regularly sited in the context of Ghosn's decision to flee the country this statistic is misleading since in Japan this figure counts cases where the defendant pleads guilty. So this 99% figure applies to all prosecuted cases not just contested cases. If the US were to use the same calculation the conviction rate would be about the same. I believe it was Ghosn's team who first referenced this statistic in the wake of his escape and it was something of a stroke of PR genius as it seems to find its way into nearly all coverage of Ghosn's escape. And these references are seemingly always without a comparative context. The following is a good read on this statistic:

https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-c...

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The 99% conviction rate number that is mentioned can be misleading. This article[1] details how prosecutors drop cases and only bring 'airtight' cases before a judge.

However, Carlos Ghosn's case was not simple some street crime uncovered by local cops, it was investigated by the special investigation section of the Tokyo prosecutors office. Cases brought by them are far less likely to be dropped. The defendant more or less has to prove their innocence.

The power of prosecutors in the current system is clearly out of balance, but it doesn't seem to show signs of correcting anytime soon.

[1]https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c05401/order-in-the-c...

Thanks for the link. It is a very curious situation where a judge would fear a prosecutor. That does suggest a power imbalance. I feel your link also supports the point I was making though and the main difference between Japan and the US is that US makes heavy uses of plea bargains vs Japan's tendency to only ever bring cases they feel have a high probability of a successful conviction.

That's because the prosecution only go for cases they are very certain about. That alone is bad, but on top of that it breeds a culture of them 'always being right and how dare you question us'.

Sorry, but it's a sign of a justice system very out of whack and not something to defend.

People are only okay with it because most people don't have any interaction with law enforcement, let alone the justice system.

>"Sorry, but it's a sign of a justice system very out of whack and not something to defend."

I was in no way defending that system at all. I was just pointing out that the 99% statistic is constantly thrown about in Ghosn discussions without ever mentioning what the conviction percentage is anywhere else. And if you use the US as a a standard of comparison then that statistic is actually quite high as well. And if use the same calculation as Japan then the US is also above 99%.

If someone says "the life expectancy for women in my country is 88", then without comparing that to somewhere else perhaps your own country then you don't really know if you should consider 88 high or low or normal. Anyway the link I provided discusses comparative justice systems and why this is, including your first point.

I would love a citation on where you are getting "above 99%" for the US.

What I managed to find easily just now in https://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/reports/asr2012/12... page 9 has: "Of the 87,709 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2012, 80,963, or 93 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty."

So quite high, but not anything like over 99%.

This is federal cases, though, so maybe state cases have higher enough volume and conviction rates to make the overall number over 99%? Again, I would love to see hard data.

> Japan’s often-cited conviction rate of over 99 percent is a percentage of all prosecuted cases, not just contested cases. It is eye-catching, but misleading, since it counts as convictions those cases in which defendants pleaded guilty. If the U.S. conviction rate were calculated in a similar manner it would also exceed 99 percent since so few cases are contested at trial (in FY 2018 only 320 of the total number of 79,704 federal defendants were acquitted at trial).[0]

[0] https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-c...

Edit: looking at your linked PDF I think the above quote is missing the thousands of misdemeanors dismissed by judges. This just goes the show the difficulty of comparing legal systems using a single number from each.

There's a citation linked in my GP comment above.

Thank you; I had missed that. As the sibling comment from shkkmo points out, not all prosecuted cases that result in a "not guilty" involve acquittal at trial. But I will grant that it's hard to talk about numbers here without very carefully defining what exactly we will be counting...

How do you plead guilty and not get convicted? I'm not arguing - I genuinely don't understand.

It includes cases where they plead guilty, it's not made from just them.

Pleading guilty means you yourself admit your guilt(often in exchange for some concession such as a reduced crime or reduced sentence.) This in contrast to a judge or jury finding you guilty. The latter is considered a "contested" case. Contested cases are what the US uses for the convictions rate percentage. The vast majority of federal criminal cases in the US are not contested and do not go to trial, despite what TV courtroom drama would have you believe. If you plead guilty, a conviction will still be entered I was just pointing out the procedural differences and how they are counted.

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