Japan's Supreme Court scraps retrial for 92-yr-old woman convicted of murder
(Mainichi Japan)
TOKYO -- The Supreme Court has scrapped lower court decisions to grant a retrial to a 92-year-old woman who served a 10-year prison sentence for crimes including a 1979 murder.
In a ruling dated June 25, the First Petty Bench of the Supreme Court denied a retrial for Ayako Haraguchi and her former husband, who died in 1993 at the age of 66. The couple was found guilty in the death of a 42-year-old man in the city of Osaki in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Kagoshima.
The decision came during Haraguchi's third request for a retrial, which both the Kagoshima District Court and the Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court had granted. The top court's latest decision, which is final, is thought to be the first to annul a retrial after it has been granted by both a district and a high court.
(Mainichi)
