JAPAN: Prisoner in the Dock

In a steaming, jampacked courtroom in Maebashi, 60 miles northwest of Tokyo, U.S. Army Specialist Third Class William S. Girard went on trial for manslaughter. In court last week, eying him coldly, was the teen-age daughter of the 46-year-old Japanese woman whom Girard shot in the back on a firing range seven months ago. Until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Japan had the right to try him (TIME, July 22), the Girard case was headline material on both sides of the Pacific and the focal point, in the U.S., of more jingoistic and uninformed editorial comment than perhaps any subject since the Spanish-American War.

Before the trial opened, Girard’s Army defense counsel said: “The boy is getting skinny. This thing is so hard on him that he has become a nervous wreck.” Fresh from a visit with the defendant, the American Legion’s Observer Alvin M. Owsley burbled: “There is something sweet about this youth. He does not stand alone. He is part of America.”

“I’m Sorry.” Girard, his pompadour and long sideburns carefully cropped and brushed, arrived in Maebashi for the trial still under the 24-hour guard set over him since he went AWOL on a drinking spree a few weeks ago. In the dock he sat uncomfortably, gazing dazedly at the three-judge tribunal, his onetime swagger gone. When the charge was read out, Chief Judge Yuzo Kawachi summoned Girard to the witness stand and beamed at him like a benign headmaster. “You don’t have to answer any questions unless you want to,” said Kawachi. “Is there anything you want to say?” Girard said no, and went back to his seat. Judge Kawachi recalled him to the stand. “You have nothing to say? Can you point out facts in the charge that you do not think are correct?” Girard conferred with his Japanese attorney, Itsuro Hayashi, replied: “… It was a pure accident as far as I’m concerned, and I’m sorry about it.”

Outside the courtroom swarms of swallows twittered in the cherry trees, and various Japanese protest groups milled about urging everything from the utmost leniency to the death penalty for the prisoner in the dock. Inside the courtroom the electric fans stopped whirling because of power shortage, and everyone broke out collapsible rice-paper fans.

At the end of the first day Judge Kawachi recessed the trial, announced that the next session would be held at the scene of the shooting. There the prosecution will attempt to prove one of the major points of its case: that Girard deliberately lured the Japanese woman onto the range (to scavenge for brass cartridge cases) and then fired at her.

Uncomplicated Case. U.S. observers, including the American Legion’s Alvin Owsley and former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge William Clark, came away somewhat mollified after the first day, though Judge Clark had denounced the Japanese judge for “insolence” in not finding space for him in the crowded courtroom. “I was terribly impressed with that Japanese court,” said Owsley. “I stood in awe . . . I was amazed at the fairness of Judge Kawachi.”

Judge Clark, who was dismissed as U.S. chief justice in occupied Germany a few years ago by U.S. High Commissioner James Conant but left his post only after his passport was canceled, was in Japan on his own. He cabled Defense Secretary Wilson in Washington that he felt Girard should plead guilty to a reduced charge of gross negligence. “If I were the judge,” said Clark; “I’d give him a year. I don’t think you should shoot at old ladies.” Judge Kawachi remained a pillar of calm. “After all,” he said, “it is not a very difficult case; it is devoid of complications. The court should be able to hand down a verdict in October.”