Former nursing assistant reprimanded for murder charges Beginning of innocence Shiga Feb 3, 4:58
Seventeen years ago, a patient was killed at a hospital in Higashiomi City, Shiga Prefecture, and a 12-year prison sentence was sentenced for murder. The prosecutor's policy is to abandon the conviction, and the defense wants to clarify the matter of the investigation in the trial.
Mika Nishiyama (40), a nursing assistant at Koto Memorial Hospital in Higashiomi City, Shiga Prefecture, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for murder for removing a ventilator from a 72-year-old male patient who died in 2003. I was confirmed and served.
Mr. Nishiyama appealed for innocence and asked for a rerun, and as a result, the court found that the patient was likely to have died of illness and found the conviction on the grounds of the confession at the investigation stage to be wrong, and a retrial was conducted Was decided last March.
The redo trial will begin at 1:30 pm on March 3 in the Otsu District Court.
Prosecutors have indicated that they will give up guilty evidence with new evidence, and Nishiyama is expected to be acquitted.
On the other hand, the lawyer wants to clarify the problems of the investigation through questions to Mr. Nishiyama, and it will be noticed how he will speak in court.
The story so far
In May 2003, a 72-year-old male patient was found dead at Koto Memorial Hospital in Higashiomi City, Shiga Prefecture. Police began the investigation on suspicion of gross negligence on the job following testimony that the patient's ventilator tube had been removed.
About a year later, Ms. Mika Nishiyama, a nursing assistant at the hospital, was arrested by police for alleged murder. I confessed that I had removed the ventilator tube.
In the trial, Mr. Nishiyama asserted innocence, saying, "I made a confession that my mental condition was unstable."
However, the Otsu District Court in the first instance issued a 12-year prison sentence stating that the statement at the investigation stage was detailed, specific and extremely reliable, and was finalized by the Supreme Court in May 2007.
Mr. Nishiyama filed a first request for a retrial in September 2010 while serving at the Wakayama Prison, and he fought up to the Supreme Court, but was rejected.
In September 2012, Mr. Nishiyama filed a second request for a retrial, and in August 2017, when he was in dispute at the Osaka High Court, ended his prison term and left prison.
Four months after the source, the Osaka High Court has ruled to allow a retrial.
New evidence, such as a doctor's certificate, cannot be concluded that the cause of the patient's death was that the ventilator was disconnected and the supply of oxygen was cut off, suggesting that the patient may have died due to arrhythmia, and the case itself was suspected. The Supreme Court approved a retrial last March.
Last October, prosecutors also announced a policy of abandoning guilty evidence, and it has been assured that Nishiyama will be acquitted in a retrial.
Currently, Nishiyama works at a factory and lives with his elderly parents who supported his life in prison.
17 years since the incident occurred. The final retrial begins on the 3rd.