AUM CULT LEADER . . . CALLING JOHNNIE COCHRAN

Shoko Asahara is having a hard time finding a lawyer. No attorney has come forward to take up the cause of the cult leader accused in the Tokyo subway gas poisoning. However, TIME senior writer James Walsh says the real question isn't whether Asahara will get a lawyer (he will) but whether he'll get justice in the courts. He says it's rare for someone to be acquitted in a Japanese criminal trial. "When you're arrested in Japan you might as well throw in your cards. The Japanese system values society over the individual, and things that would be horrible abuses of power in the Western system are accepted there." Noting that a suspect can be held for several weeks without being charged with anything, Walsh says the police will try to get a confession out of Asahara before bringing charges. "It's pretty clear that he'll spend the rest of his life in jail."