On 8 January 2020, nearly 2,000 people gathered outside Yokohama District Court for a lottery for just 26 public-gallery seats. It was the opening hearing in the case concerning the killing of 19 disabled residents and the wounding of 24 others at a care home in Sagamihara. After acknowledging the indictment, the defendant was restrained in court and proceedings were briefly halted.
The number seeking admission was about seventy-seven times the number of seats. The case drew attention as a grave examination of discriminatory ideas directed at disabled people and of how society would confront them.
The importance of this queue is not spectacle. It records an attempt by the public to witness a consequential trial through an extremely limited number of seats. Respect for the victims and their families requires treating its scale as evidence of judicial attention, not as entertainment.