
News10: Woman Believes Son was Unfairly Punished for Crime in Japan
A Marine general and an Auburn mother are asserting the woman's Marine son is being unduly punished for a crime he committed while stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Lance Corporal Josh Major, 26, is serving four-and-a-half years of forced labor in a Japanese prison for assaulting a 20-year-old Okinawa man without provocation two years ago...Major initially drew a two-year suspended sentence for the assault. But the prosecution appealed the sentences and convinced a higher court [he] should get stiffer punishment. A U.S. military trial observer said the prosecutor's argument was laced with anti-American rhetoric. Teresa Boyd, Major's mother, admits her son was wrong to beat up the man. "Such a dishonor," she said... "It was bad, it was mean...But it's nowhere near the severity of a crime that would get a four-and-a-half year sentence for the first offense in America." The commanding Marine general...appears to concur...writing, "the high court's unprecedented harsh sentence clearly indicates a bias by the court against the accused."