Graduated from the Department of Law of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1919. He served as a professor at the Imperial University of Tohoku and Hosei University. He participated in the formation of Nihon Shakai-to (Japan Socialist Party) in 1945 and was elected a member of the House of Representatives the following year. He served as the Minister of Justice in the Katayama Cabinet in 1947. With the new establishment of the Attorney General's Office, he was appointed its first president in 1948 and he stayed in the post during the following Ashida Cabinet. While he served as a member of Temporary Committee for the Investigation of Legal Systems, as a member of the Public Prosecutors' Qualifications Examination Committee and as a judge of the Judge Impeachment Court, he assumed the presidency of Senshu University from 1952. He participated in the formation of the Democratic Socialist Party in 1960 and served as the governing chairman as well as captain of the members of the Diet.-Jur. d..