Nov. 1
JAPAN:
Osaka court imposes death sentence on pachinko parlor arsonist
The Osaka District Court on Monday imposed a death sentence on a man for
setting fire to a pachinko parlor in Osaka in July 2009 that killed 5 people
and injured 10 others.
In convicting Sunao Takami, 43, Presiding Judge Makoto Wada also ruled that
death by hanging would not contravene the Constitution, although Takami's
defense counsel had argued it would constitute "a cruel punishment" forbidden
by the national charter.
"There is a controversy over whether (death by hanging) is the best way, but
the death penalty system in the first place entails that a person pay for his
or her crime with death. Agony and cruelty to some extent are inevitable," Wada
said in handing down the verdict.
The prosecutors asserted that the Supreme Court has already ruled that death by
hanging is constitutional.
According to the ruling, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of the pachinko
parlor in Osaka's Konohana Ward and set it alight on July 5, 2009.
The defendant was mentally competent at the time of the crime, the judge said,
fully accepting the charges leveled by the prosecutors although they had
admitted Takami had been delusional due to drug use in the past.
The case was handled under the lay judge trial system, in which 6 ordinary
citizens serve as judges along with 3 professional judges. The lay judges' term
of service of 60 days was the longest since the system was introduced for
serious criminal trials in Japan in 2009.
(source: Mainichi Daily News)
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