The death sentence for a 69-year-old man convicted of killing five neighbors in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan in 2013 is set to be finalized after the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected his appeal against a lower court ruling.
The decision against Kosei Homi, who was also found guilty of setting fire to two of the victims' homes in a remote community, was handed down by the top court's No. 1 Petty Bench.
According to the lower court ruling, Homi killed a woman and a couple, all in their 70s, by bludgeoning them in the head with a wooden pole before setting fire to their homes in the mountainous community of Shunan, in July 2013.
He was also convicted of murdering two more elderly people.
During his appeal at the Hiroshima High Court, Homi's lawyers pleaded his innocence, claiming that he could not be held criminally responsible by reason of insanity or diminished mental capacity.
But the court upheld in 2016 a lower court ruling that judged Homi was fully competent to be held legally responsible.
It did, however, acknowledge that he suffered from a type of delusional disorder.
Source: Kyodo News, Staff, July 11, 2019
⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us:
deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde