"Osaki case" retrial Today court decides 95-year-old woman complains of innocence

43 years ago, a 95-year-old woman who was sentenced to murder of her brother-in-law in Osaki Town, Kagoshima Prefecture, complained of innocence and asked for a retrial = redoing the trial. Make a decision on whether to allow a retrial.

In this case, the decision to approve the retrial has been made three times so far, and then it has been revoked, which is an unusual process, and the decision to be shown again is noteworthy.

Akimasa Haraguchi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murdering her 42-year-old brother-in-law with her husband in Osaki Town, Kagoshima Prefecture in 1979. It is Mr. (95).

After serving his sentence, he appealed for innocence and filed a re-trial, and the district court and the high court have decided to approve the retrial three times so far, but all of them were canceled by the high court and the Supreme Court in response to the prosecution's appeal. I was quietly requesting a retrial again.

In previous hearings, the lawyers said the death of his brother-in-law was due to a serious injury to his neck when he fell into a ditch on his bicycle on the day and no appropriate rescue measures were taken. He submitted a life-saving doctor's appraisal as new evidence and claimed that it was not a murder case.

The prosecution argued that the appraisal was unreliable.

It will be interesting to see what conclusions will be drawn in the unusual course of the court's decision over the finding of a final decision.

Ayako Haraguchi Consistently innocent complaint

Ayako Haraguchi (95) has consistently complained of innocence since she was arrested 43 years ago.

She was released in 1990 at the age of 63 after completing a 10-year sentence, and she filed her first retrial five years later.

And she said she went out to the streets of Kagoshima City and she said, "I haven't done any incidents. I've been guilty of the wrong thing, so I can't just die from this guilt." I have been appealing.

She has been doing these activities for nearly 20 years, but from five years ago she was sick and she was admitted to a hospital in Kagoshima prefecture and couldn't even visit the court.

According to the lawyers and supporters he is visiting, Mr. Haraguchi has a sequelae of cerebral infarction and it is currently difficult to speak out, but when he talks about the request for retrial, he tries to get up and opens his eyes to the trial. The strong will to start over is that it hasn't diminished.

Final decision and defense team allegations

The "Osaki Incident" in which Ayako Haraguchi's brother-in-law was found dead in a cowshed.

How the man died and why the body was abandoned, the final judgment and the defense team's allegations are significant.

First, the history of the case that was approved by the final judgment.

Forty-three years ago, on October 12, 1979, my brother-in-law, who had been drinking alcohol since the morning, fell into a gutter with his bicycle on the way back from shopping for alcohol in the evening.

Around 8 pm, someone found him pulled out of the ditch and laid down on the road, and two men in the neighborhood put it on the bed of a light truck and took it home and left it in the dirt floor of the front door.

Then, at around 10:30 pm, Mr. Haraguchi, who came to see the situation after being contacted by the two, had a murderous intention to his brother-in-law who was drunk in the dirt floor, and took it to his husband etc. with a towel around 11 pm He was murdered by strangling his head and abandoned his body in a cowshed on the premises of his house at dawn the next day.

On the other hand, the lawyers have already died when two men in the neighborhood took them home because their brother-in-law died because he injured his cervical spine when he fell into the gutter. He insisted that it was probably not a murder case in the first place.

He claims that the body was abandoned, which may have been upset by a person who noticed that he was dead when he was taken home.

In the past three allegations, the lawyers corrected their own opinion that the forensic scientist in charge of the judicial autopsy at the time of the incident was "suffocation due to pressure on the neck", suggesting that it may have been an accidental death. I submitted a new appraisal and a cause of death appraisal by another forensic scientist.

Then, the district court and the high court decided to approve Mr. Haraguchi's retrial three times in total, saying that he may have died in an accident.

However, three years ago, the Supreme Court overturned the judgment of the district court and the high court and decided not to allow retrial, saying that the judgment submitted by the defense team did not indicate the time of death even if it showed the cause of death. ..

In response, the defense team, in this fourth allegation, submitted new evidence of the cause of death and timing of death by paramedics.

Regarding the cause of death, the cause of death was that the condition of the organs shown in the photograph of the body was found. It is said that he died because he died.

At that time, it was a symptom called "non-obstructive intestinal ischemia" that was not yet known in the medical field in Japan, and it is highly possible that he died when he was taken home due to respiratory arrest. is.

Then, with the cooperation of movie director Masayuki Suo, we will explain the correct method of rescue for people with injured cervical spine and the situation at the time when they were carried on a light truck carrier casually. I made a reproduced image.

In addition, the testimony of two men in the neighborhood who carried their brother-in-law, "I was alive when I brought them home," was said to contain false content in scientific and psychological analysis. I submitted an expert testimony.

On top of that, he said that he could not kill a person who had already died, the final judgment was wrong, and the crime was obvious.

Movement to request a review of the retrial system

Regarding the Osaki case, there are also opinions that it is necessary to review the way the retrial system should be.

The law stipulating the retrial system was created before the war, and with some exceptions, it has been in operation almost as it is.

There are no provisions regarding the disclosure of evidence, and it is left to the discretion of the judge to recommend the prosecution to disclose evidence at the investigation stage.

In the Osaki case, the Kagoshima District Court decided to approve the retrial based on the negative film of the photograph disclosed for the first time at the time of the third request for retrial, but important evidence remains buried. The possibilities aren't gone.

Also, in the Osaki case, the prosecution has filed an appeal every time the court decides to approve the retrial, which causes a long period of time until a final conclusion is reached.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations = Japan Federation of Bar Associations will set up the "Retrial Law Amendment Realization Headquarters" on the 16th of this month, and will proceed with efforts to seek revision of the law on these issues in order to relieve victims of perennial crime.