The Kagoshima District Court sentenced a 19-year-old man to 18 years in prison for murdering a nursery teacher on Tokunoshima, rejecting a juvenile protection order in a case that turned on whether a minor with a developmental disorder could be reformed.
The court handed down the prison term against a prosecution request for 22 years, MBC Minaminihon Broadcasting reported. The man was 17 and a high school student at the time of the crime.
According to the indictment, he broke into the home of Fumiko Kikuchi, a 55-year-old nursery teacher in Isen, in November of the year before last. He stabbed her multiple times with a kitchen knife when she returned home.
He admitted the charges, and the facts of the case were not disputed at trial. The question before the lay judges was whether he should serve a prison term or be sent to a juvenile training school under a protection order.
A protection order would have returned him to family court and placed him in a juvenile training school for up to three years of corrective education.
Sent back to prosecutors
Because he was 17 at the time, the case first went to family court. The court sent him back to the Kagoshima District Public Prosecutors Office, finding it hard to see any measure other than criminal punishment.
He was then charged with murder, trespassing and violations of the Swords and Firearms Control Law, and tried before lay judges.
A doctor who conducted a psychiatric examination testified that the man has a developmental disorder that makes communication difficult.
Prosecutors argued the disorder was mild and had little effect on the crime. They said reform within three years would be difficult and sought 22 years.
The defense argued the disorder lay behind a delusion that he was being harassed. A juvenile training school could educate him according to his traits and reform him, the defense said, and asked for a protection order.
Apology and anger
In earlier hearings the man repeatedly stumbled over his words but apologized in a clear voice. "I am sorry for taking away someone precious," he said.
“It does not feel real that he killed someone, and his words sound like a formality. I will never forgive him.”the victim's family, bereaved family, speaking in court