FG Wins Not Guilty Verdict in Lay Judge Trial

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Prosecutors won't appeal Chinese man's acquittal in lay judge trial
A Chinese national is set to be the first criminal defendant in Japan whose acquittal in a lay-judge trial will be confirmed. Prosecutors have decided not to appeal the acquittal of the 33-year-old man, who was charged with smuggling stimulants into Japan, apparently after deeming that it would be difficult to prove his guilt in an appeal trial, law enforcement sources said. Two days after entering Japan on April 13, 2010, on a tourist visa, the man was arrested in Tokyo for accepting about 4.5 kilograms of stimulants, worth approximately 366 million yen, sent by mail from Hong Kong. He was subsequently indicted on charges of smuggling the illegal drugs in violation of the Stimulants Control Law. During his trial, the man pleaded not guilty, claiming that he did not know that the contents of the mail item were illegal drugs. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office asserted that the man was guilty on the grounds that his mobile phone records showed he never contacted the sender of the stimulants, therefore, he knew in advance the mail item would be sent to him, and that he received the mail item under a false name. On Jan. 24, the Tokyo District Court found him not guilty, pointing to the possibility that he did not know that the mail item contained stimulants. The man was released following the ruling, but faces deportation after being detained by immigration authorities for overstaying his visa...more...

Presumably, if he was arrested two days after entering the country then he overstayed his visa because he was in prison. The details of this case do raise some doubts about this man's intended activities in Japan but it's interesting to see the police being asked to demonstrate a greater burden of proof than they might once have expected.

[Ketou]

Good to see a verdict like this...
Love the usual logic..."guilty on the grounds that his mobile phone records showed he never contacted the sender"

[Coligny]

Love the usual logic..."guilty on the grounds that his mobile phone records showed he never contacted the sender"

It's not logic it's god complex.

I am the prosecutor,
whatever I say no matter how flawed it is, must be considered as the proof that the accused is guilty as sin...

Before... it worked... whatever the level of insanity in the statement... It's a sort of creationnist justice... to fight these people you would have had to mathematically proof that whatever they said it was 100% pure madness... not the style in japan, if you want an easy carreer...

I'm pretty sure that if you go dumpster diving in their archive you'll find conviction based on the color of the underwear of the accused guy.