Japan jury hands down death sentence to minor

Execution chamber
at Tokyo Detention Center

TOKYO — Japanese jurors Thursday sentenced a teenager to hang for a double murder, the first death penalty given to a minor under the nation's newly-introduced jury system, court officials said.

The 19-year-old defendant, whose name was withheld, was convicted of stabbing to death both the sister and a friend of his girlfriend at their house in Miyagi, northern Japan, in February this year.

Under Japanese law, people under 20-years-old are tried as minors.

The teenager, who committed the murders after his girlfriend tried to end their relationship, also seriously injured another man in the attack.

"We cannot say he is fully aware of the graveness of the case," presiding judge Nobuyuki Suzuki told the Sendai District Court in Miyagi, according to Jiji Press.

"The possibility of his rehabilitation is extremely low," the judge said, adding that age was not a "decisive" factor on death penalties. The defendant was 18 years and seven months old when he killed the victims.

The sentence -- decided by six members of the jury and three professional judges -- was the first time the death penalty was handed down to a minor since Japan introduced the so-called lay-judge system in May last year.

Last week, jurors at the Yokohama District Court sentenced a 32-year-old man to death for a double murder.

Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialised democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has earned Tokyo repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups.

Source: Agence France-Presse, November 25, 2010

Death penalty given to minor for 1st time in lay judge trial

SENDAI (Kyodo) -- A 19-year-old male accused of killing two women and seriously wounding a man earlier this year in Miyagi Prefecture was sentenced to death Thursday, the first time capital punishment has been given to a minor under the lay judge trial system that began last year.

A panel of three professional and six citizen judges made the decision at the Sendai District Court in northeastern Japan.

The ruling came after the Yokohama District Court last week handed down the first death sentence under the lay judge system to a 32-year-old man found guilty of brutally murdering two men last year.

In the latest case, Presiding Judge Nobuyuki Suzuki sentenced the defendant to death, finding him guilty of stabbing to death his former girlfriend's 20-year-old elder sister, Mika Nambu, and her 18-year-old friend Mikako Omori, and seriously injuring a man who was with them at the time of the crime on Feb. 10 in Ishinomaki.

He then took away his former girlfriend, 18, and injured her in the left leg, the court's findings showed.

The name of the defendant is being withheld as he is a minor under 20.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for the defendant who committed the crime while on probation in a separate criminal case, arguing it is unlikely he could be rehabilitated in the future.

The defendant had pleaded guilty as charged.

Source: The Mainichi Daily News, November 25, 2010