On march 27th 2014, Iwao Hakamada was finally released from Death Row, having served a record breaking 47 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. While there was a media frenzy in Japan over this exceptional case, few delved deeper into the story to find out why and how a man could be subjected to such injustice in, by all accounts, such a civilised country.

Vice spoke to the people connected to Iwao Hakamada’s story as well as Sakae Menda (the first person ever, and one of only a few in Japan’s history, to be acquitted of murder) to find out the reality and disturbing truth behind death row and the criminal justice system in Japan.