LAWmazing #1 • LAWmazing #2 • LAWmazing #3 • LAWmazing #4 • LAWmazing #5 • LAWmazing 6
Acquittal By Breasts
Some lewd lawyers go their entire careers waiting for this moment.
Busty Japanese bikini model who goes by the trade name of Serena Kozakura, was initially convicted in a Japanese court for wanton property destruction. Her ex-boyfriend's evidence was that she had kicked a hole in his door suspecting him to be with another women - and then crawled through.
The first court convicted her but the attention of the appeal court was drawn to her, err, her breasts.
Appeal court judge Kunio Harada heard her appeal in March of 2008 in his Tokyo courtroom. After a rather long and awkward gaze at Ms Kozakura, he agreed with her defence lawyer's assertion that the conviction was obviously a miscarriage of justice: given his client's chest size, she could not of fit through the hole in the door. Ms Kozakura was acquitted and she credited her breasts for saving the day.
The Dog Shogun
Japanese military leaders, circa 1685, samurai all, were called Shoguns. When Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-17090) lost his only son, he called a Buddhist priest, Ryuko for advice. Well, of course, said Ryuko, the curse was due to his previous life in which, Ryuko explained, the shogun was an animal. To atone for that, the shogun had to show mercy to dogs. In the best example we can find of leaving law in the hands of a single man, Tsunayoshi had two huge temples built to worship ... dogs. Then he got his court lawyers to issue new laws, Edicts on Compassion for Living Things. Killing dogs was prohibited for which the penalty was capital punishment. They had to die of natural causes only. A census of dogs was taken. A huge home for homeless dogs was built in Yedo and a dog tax imposed to pay for the housing of the dogs.
And ... anyone coming across a stray dog had to feed it.Needless to say, dogs multiplied in Japan and caused all kinds of trouble with crop and livestock. Unfortunately, Tsunayoshi really wanted to rid himself of the curse so he strictly enforced the dog laws. Still, no son so Tsunayoshi threw birds and fish into the mix. The crows and other birds had a field day with crops and little food could come from the oceans either. One man was killed for murdering a fish. None of this helped the reputation of the samurai among the Japanese people. Small pox took Tsunayoshi’s life in 1709 and his successor, Ienobu, immediately repealed the animal laws.
The Fire & Chicken Oath
On October 26, 1902, at Westminster, British Columbia, British Columbia Supreme Court justice Martin had before him a number of Chinese witnesses in The King v Ah Wooey. We let the official law report speak to the record:
ON a Chinese witness, Chong Fon Fi, not a Christian, being called for the Crown, it was proposed to swear him through the interpreter in the manner generally adopted in the Courts of this Province, i.e., by writing his name on a piece of paper and burning it, at the same time declaring that he would tell the truth: the consumption of the paper by fire signifying the fate of his soul if he should fail to do so.
Wilson (lawyer): I object to this form of oath and am instructed that there is another form of greater solemnity and which will be more binding on the witness' conscience; it is commonly called in this Province the Chicken oath, and I ask in a case of this gravity that it be administered.
Whereupon His Lordship interrogated the local interpreter, Charlie Loo Fook, and also the official interpreter from Victoria, Yip Wing, who was present in Court assisting the Crown, and instructed them to examine the witness on the point, which being done, they informed the Court that the oath which is known to the Chinese in British Columbia (almost all of whom come from the Province of Canton) as the King's oath, or, as the white people call it, the Chicken oath, was the more binding....
A discussion arising on the form of said oath, it was finally settled by the interpreters, and written on yellow Chinese paper as follows:
Being a true witness, I shall enjoy happiness and my sons and grandsons will prosper forever. If I falsely accuse (prisoner) I shall die on the street, Heaven will punish me, earth will destroy me, I shall forever suffer adversity and all my offspring be exterminated. In burning this oath I humbly submit myself to the will of Heaven which has brilliant eyes to see. The 27th year of the reign of Kwang Su, the 16th day, the 9th Moon.
The witness having signed his name twice, and a cock having been procured, the Court and jury adjourned to a convenient place outside the building where the full ceremony of administering the oath was performed, as follows: by a block of wood, punk sticks, not less than three, and a pair of Chinese candles were stuck in the ground and lighted. The oath was then read out loud by the witness, after which he wrapped it in Joss-paper as used in religious ceremonies, then laid the cock on the block and chopped its head off, and then set fire to the oath from the candles and held it until it was consumed.
• That's not the end of it. In the law report, the editor added a footnote explaining that a saucer can be used too whereupon breaking the saucer, the witness is told, in grave tone:
"You shall tell the truth.... The saucer is cracked, and if you do not tell the truth, your soul will be cracked like the saucer."
REFERENCES:
- Brinkley, F., A History of the Japanese People (London: Encyclopedia Britannica Co., 1915), pages 602-608 (re Dog Shogun)
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 1
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 2
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 3
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 4
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 5
- Duhaime, Lloyd, LAWmazing 6
- Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Volume 8, “Tokugawa Tsunayoshi” (Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd., 1983)
- McLean, Tracy, Uncommon Oaths (re the Chicken Oath), The Stream (British Columbia Courthouse Libraries), June 22, 2011
- Model uses large breasts as court defence to prove she didn't break into house through hole, London: Daily Mail, March 4, 2008
- R v Ah Wooey, 8 C.C.C. 25 (1902)