To make a long story short: the general standard of Japanese policing at present is quite similar to the prevailing standard of US policing in the 1950s. The primary investigative tactic is coercing confessions, and I do not use the word "coercing" lightly. Japanese cops can jail someone on suspicion of wrongdoing for 20-something days prior to having to bring a magistrate into the picture, during which time they're routinely physically and emotionally abused and made to think that signing whatever the cops put in front of them will be the quickest way to end the ordeal.
Indeed. Japan is a police state. A remarkably polite one, but things at this level are done for the convenience of the police, prosecutors and judges (at least prior to adding juries to the system, but I'm quite skeptical how that'll turn out for quite a while). Closing cases is more important than finding the real criminal, and atrocities like their handling of the Aum Shinrikyo cult suggest they're not so good when put to serious test.
"Atrocities like their handling of the Aum Shinrikyo cult"? Are you referring to the guy falsely blamed for the Matsumoto attack? The police are indeed likely to blame for leaking his name to the media, but he was never even formally charged, much less convicted:
The investigation of the Tokyo sarin attacks, on the other hand, seems to have been carried out pretty much by the book and I'm not aware of anybody outside the tinfoil hat brigade who contests that they got the right people.
After the sarin attacks, they did a good job. I'm referring to the multiple times they dropped the ball prior to that point, which among other things allowed the sarin attacks to happen. Their screwup on the Matsumoto attack is an obvious example; they they harmed an innocent in an incorrect focus on him is in a way much less important than letting the culprits later do much worse.
Are they juries? A lay judge is different, and given the implementation of it, it seems barely better than what they had before, since a lay judge is typically going to just defer to the professional judge most of the time, anyway.
I figured the system would end up being "juries" only in form and didn't investigate it, but it's of course it turns out to be much worse as you point out. And then there's this gem from Wikipedia which echoes the early issues with common law juries, which were not much respected by the ruling class if the case was important and they rendered the "wrong" verdict:
"Others have written with concern regarding the harsh secrecy provision in the statute which includes the risk of criminal penalties for those lay judges who would publicly share confidential deliberation room discussion even after trial proceedings are complete.:
I'm sure there's a lot more where that came from, plus of course as you note extreme deference would likely be paid to the professional judges. The above is from the end of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lay_judges_in_Japan
