They alternative, where prosecutors lose so many cases that their win rate goes down into the 70's or 60's, implies that prosecutors are taking lots of flyers just see how the cases shake out. That would be a tremendous abuse.
A great movie on the Japanese judicial system is I just didn't do it (Soredemo boku wa yattenai) [2] It's a phenomenal movie but really shows that Japan has a real issues.
Given that if I were Ghosn, I'd have escaped too, there was no way for him to get a fair trial in Japan.
[1] https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c05401/order-in-the-c... [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0794350/
The staff of prosecutors is much smaller in Japan, so it likely means they mostly prosecute the winnable cases. In contrast in the US, a district attorney might choose to prosecute cases which make themself more electable.
So you completely missed the case that Japan’s conviction rate is high because they may only prosecute people when there is actual evidence.
The judge figures that you must be guilty, or they wouldn't be charging you.
There's an old baseball story, where Rogers Hornsby (one of the greatest hitters of all time) is up, a pitch comes in, and the ump calls it a ball. The catcher turns around to complain.
The ump says "Young man, if that was a strike, Mr. Hornsby would have swung at it."
But - FWIW - prosecutors in the US tend to have win rates north of 90% as well. 98% is excessively high, yes, but we're talking single digit percentages compared to a country with comparatively more crime.
So I can't say I wouldn't have done the same as Ghosn, given the necessary resources. Right or wrong wouldn't be a consideration, as long as I could rationalize an assumption of bad faith on the courts' part.
Edit: I guess it could also suggest that the police in Japan are hopeless fuckups who only manage to catch the most flagrantly-incompetent criminals. That doesn't sound any more realistic than the other possibilities IMO.