The Tokyo High Court has upheld the acquittal of a 34-year-old man charged with injury resulting in death over the death of his partner's 4-year-old son in an apartment in Yokohama eight years ago, NHK reported.
The man was accused of assaulting the boy, the eldest son of a woman he was in a common-law marriage with, and causing his death. The high court, hearing the appeal, acquitted him, siding with the first-instance ruling.
The ruling leaves the man cleared at two levels of court in a case that turned on how prosecutors prove assault caused a child's death. The source does not give the date of the boy's death, the name of the first court, the date of the latest ruling, or the reason the high court gave for the acquittal.