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by IparryU » Mon Jul 25, 2011 1:58 pm
that will be some part of some dumb reason to make it impossible to sue the jap-gov for wrongfully imprisoning him.Doctor Stop wrote:If he's cleared of the murder, the prosecutors will probably charge him for overstaying his visa while he was wrongly incarcerated.
by Samurai_Jerk » Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:10 pm
Doctor Stop wrote:If he's cleared of the murder, the prosecutors will probably charge him for overstaying his visa while he was wrongly incarcerated.
by Samurai_Jerk » Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:09 pm
IparryU wrote:FTFY
by Mulboyne » Mon Sep 05, 2011 11:42 pm
Prosecutors withheld key evidence from the defense in the trial of a Nepalese man accused of murdering a Japanese woman in 1997, according to sources close to the case. Govinda Prasad Mainali was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. whose name is being withheld for reasons of privacy. During the initial investigation into the woman's murder, police detected saliva on her breast that did not match the suspect's blood type, but prosecutors withheld the information from his defense counsel, the sources said. The withholding of evidence surfaced during a Tokyo High Court examination of a request by Mainali for a retrial.
In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld a high court ruling that sentenced Mainali, 44, to life imprisonment. Mainali has type B blood, but the saliva in question came from a person with type O blood. According to sources, the saliva was collected immediately after the woman's body was found, and the blood type of the person it came from was determined soon after. The prosecutors withheld the information from both Mainali's lawyer and the Tokyo District Court, which first tried Mainali, the sources said. The court found Mainali not guilty in April 2000, and the prosecution appealed the case to the Tokyo High Court, which found him guilty in December of the same year. Prosecutors say they did not conduct a DNA analysis of the saliva in the belief that the sample was too small, the sources said.
According to the High Court ruling, the woman was killed on March 8, 1997. Earlier in the day, she had sex at about 7 p.m. at a hotel in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, with an acquaintance who had type O blood, the court said. The two separated at about 10:15 p.m., and the woman and Mainali entered the apartment in the ward where her body was found at about 11:30 p.m., and she was later killed there, according to the ruling. According to the sources, the acquaintance told investigators the woman took a shower after they had sex. If he was telling the truth, it is possible that after the two split up, another man met the victim at the apartment and killed her, leaving his saliva on her breast, the sources said. The courts had to rely on circumstantial evidence in the case in the absence of hard evidence showing that Mainali killed the woman, the sources said.
Other facts seem to contradict the prosecutors' claim that Mainali killed the woman, the sources said, including the fact that her commuter pass was found after her murder in Tokyo's Sugamo, Toshima Ward, Tokyo, a place Mainali claimed to be unfamiliar with. Still, the High Court ruling said, "It is inconceivable that a third party [other than Mainali] entered the room [where the woman was killed] with the victim." Recently, the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office conducted DNA analyses of 42 items at the request of the Tokyo High Court. The results showed that the DNA of semen found in the woman matched that of body hairs found at the crime scene, indicating the possibility that a third party with the same DNA was at the scene. The semen was found to have come from a person with type O blood, according to the sources.
If the evidence about the saliva had been revealed to the defense and courts, he may not have been convicted, the sources said. All of the 42 items have been disclosed to Mainali's defense counsel. Meanwhile, the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office has told the Tokyo High Court and Mainali's lawyers that it will conduct DNA analyses of about 40 items, including the saliva, that had not been disclosed to Mainali's defense counsel during the trials.
by matsuki » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:24 am
by Mulboyne » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:42 am
chokonen888 wrote:Dayam...in any civilized country, you'd expect those prosecutors to be locked up for such criminal behavior or criminal negligence at the very least.
The discovery that prosecutors failed to reveal evidence that would have thrown serious doubt on the conviction of a Nepalese man for murder is likely to affect a court decision on whether to allow a retrial in the case, observers said. The latest finding also may stir public debate over how evidence should be disclosed during trials. It has been learned that the blood type of saliva detected on the breast of the victim during police investigations was different from that of Govinda Prasad Mainali. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing the woman, an employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co., in 1997. The saliva indicates that the victim might have had contact with another man on the day of the crime. However, prosecutors did not disclose it during Mainali's trials.
"We had no choice but to believe prosecutors when they told us they'd presented everything [that could be reexamined]," said Hiroshi Kamiyama, chief lawyer for Mainali, at a press conference on July 26. The lawyer made the remarks after he presented DNA test results as "new evidence that proves Mainali's innocence" to the Tokyo High Court, which is considering Mainali's request for a retrial. The results of a new DNA examination of semen found in the woman's body revealed the possibility that another man was at her apartment the day she was killed. The DNA testing was conducted by prosecutors at the request of the high court on items that had been presented during Mainali's trials.
Prosecutors now have decided to conduct DNA testing on about 40 additional pieces of evidence, including the saliva. The high court will then rule whether such tests are applicable. But defense lawyers likely will express strong objections over the fact that prosecutors failed to present many pieces of evidence, including the saliva testing results in question.
For many years, the Criminal Procedure Code did not stipulate in detail requirements for the disclosure of evidence. Consequently, prosecutors rarely disclosed evidence they felt unnecessary to establish someone's guilt. However, there have been a number of cases in which convicted defendants turned out to be innocent after certain evidence was ultimately disclosed. One such case was the 1949 Matsukawa Incident, which is said to be the largest case of false accusation--20 people were found guilty but later acquitted. There was also the 1967 Fukawa Incident, in which two men were acquitted in a retrial this June.
More specific provisions about disclosure of evidence were included in the Criminal Procedure Code in 2005, as part of steps taken toward the introduction of the lay judge system in 2009. Prosecutors are now required to disclose evidence that may support defense lawyers' arguments, not just evidence that supports their own, during pretrial procedures. However, some observers say this is not enough to prevent prosecutors from concealing evidence. "We must create a system under which all evidence is disclosed," said lawyer Keita Miyamura, a member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
by gaijinpunch » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:32 am
by IparryU » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:47 am
Mulboyne wrote:Under the law at the time, the prosecutors didn't do anything illegal by withholding that evidence.
Yomiuri: New facts may affect retrial / Discovery may also spur debate over disclosure of evidence
by gaijinpunch » Wed Sep 07, 2011 1:30 pm
IparryU wrote:wow... so the prosecution team has 100% control over all evidence and none of it is recorded in the crime scene record that the judge and Defense Attorney have access to...
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