Japanese Trial by Jury System

It has been a while since I last write anything long.  I blame this mostly due to Plurk...a nice little micro-blog site that is addictive.  There you can share your thoughts and find/make friends easily.  Most of the time you don't know who you're chatting and the topics are usually of no major importance/meaning in your life. From time to time there are also useful information or discussion being made.  When you have a good net friend there, it is easy to discuss a topic that you don't get to talk in real life.  Because of this easiness to talk...I write less and less now and I read less books too...don't think this is a good sign but I suppose I will have to find a way to change this soon.

Anyway, this topic of Japanese trial-by-jury system came up in the news and I had this discussion with Walkinggeek.  The sentence given by that jury (after one juror quit the case due to health issue and a replacement juror came in) was to have the defendant to stay behind bars for 15 years.  As more and more cases going on trial, I hope someone will conduct a research on the jurors' psychological impact for those involved in the cases where life sentence or death sentences were given.  We'll see...