Murder case sent back to high court | 日本のニュースを英語で読むならジャパンタイムズウィークリー


	UPDATE: Saturday, June 12, 2010 The Japan Times Weekly 2006年6月24日号（バックナンバー）

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Murder case sent back to high court

The Hiroshima High Court will review its March 2002 life sentence of a then 18-year-old man for killing a 23-year-old woman and her 11-month-old baby in Yamaguchi Prefecture seven years ago, as the Supreme Court decided June 20 to send the case back to the high court.

Hiroshi Motomura、whose wife and baby daughter was murdered in 1999

Presiding Judge Kunio Hamada scrapped the high court's life sentence of the 25-year-old defendant, saying that his age when he committed the crime cannot be a reason to reject a death sentence.

The Hiroshima court had upheld the life sentence handed down by the Yamaguchi District Court against the defendant for breaking into the apartment in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on April 14, 1999, and strangling Yayoi Motomura and her daughter Yuka.

The husband Hiroshi Motomura said, "I wanted the Supreme Court to hand down a death sentence, instead of sending the case back to the lower court."

The defendant's name has been withheld because he was a minor at the time of the crime.

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