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A good example of the level of secrecy that surrounds the death penalty in Japan was when one of our lawyer colleagues formally requested a visit to an execution chamber in a detention centre. Even though he made a formal proposal through the Bar Association Committee, they rejected his request.
In the majority of the cases a prisoner isn't told that they will be executed until the morning of the execution. Neither the family nor the lawyer are given advance notice. It is believed that the execution takes place within an hour of the prisoner being told. Consequently, the prisoner is not given the opportunity to appeal the decision, and is therefore not given their chance to overturn the ruling. The secrecy and the procedures around the death penalty in Japan are serious problems.
I believe that Japanese people have a limited view of the death penalty because of the limited information available. A public survey will reveal that the majority are in favour of the death penalty, but this is because they don't know how death row prisoners live their lives nor how executions are actually carried out. Also, a popular belief is that if someone is sentenced to imprisonment for an indefinite period of time they will be released after ten years, but this is wrong. In reality, there is an increasing number of prisoners for whom it means the same as life imprisonment without parole. If people knew this, along with the lack of notice given, and the fact that prisoners are kept separate from society and considered never to have existed, I believe that they would change their minds about supporting the death penalty.