Takuya Katsumata (age 32-in photo)
Katsumata, originally a suspect in the murder of a 7 year old little girl, voluntarily gave a DNA sample and was disqualified as a suspect in 2005. In 2014, more than 8 years after the incident, Katsumata was arrested for sales of counterfeit brand name goods. While in interrogation, police coerced a confession to the still unsolved murder.
No solid evidence exists in this case. The courts have apparently even given carte blanche to the prosecution to change dates and places (see article below). Even the normally conservative Japan Times has editorialized on this verdict (also below).
~~~~~~~~~
High court upholds life term for ’05 Tochigi killer after quashing lower court ruling; defense appeals
Kyodo, Staff Report Aug 3, 2018 Article history
Supporters hold up banners saying 'Unfair ruling' and 'Appeal dismissed' after the Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld a life sentence handed down by the Utsunomiya District Court in 2016 for Takuya Katsumata. | KYODO
The Tokyo High Court sentenced a man to life in prison Friday for the 2005 murder of a girl in Tochigi Prefecture, retaining a lower court’s punishment but repealing its ruling for excessive reliance on interrogation footage.
Takuya Katsumata, 36, who was arrested more than eight years after the body of 7-year-old Yuki Yoshida was found, initially admitted to murdering her but later retracted his statements. His lawyer immediately appealed Friday’s ruling.
The first-grader was found dead in a mountain forest in Ibaraki Prefecture a day after she vanished on Dec. 1, 2005, while on her way home from elementary school in what was then the city of Imaichi.
In the ruling, the high court expressed “strong doubts” about the Utsunomiya District Court’s heavy reliance on video footage of the interrogations to gauge the credibility of the defendant’s confession. The court said using the footage in such a manner could lead to a judgment based on “impressions,” rather than objective thought.
“It was illegal that the lower court ruling found the defendant guilty through interrogation recordings,” Toshiaki Fujii, the presiding judge, said.
The was in contrast to the Utsunomiya District Court’s ruling, which had judged it was not possible to find Katsumata guilty solely based on circumstantial evidence, and relied on confessions he’d made in recorded interrogations.
Despite reaching the same conclusion as the lower court on his guilt, as well as the need to hand down a life sentence, the high court quashed the content of the April 2016 ruling by the Utsunomiya District Court, saying its determination of the crime based on recorded interrogations was “illegal.”
Footage of the interrogations was shown for more than seven hours at the district court, leading Katsumata’s defense team to argue that it gave lay judges the impression that the defendant was guilty.
But the high court, which only uses professional judges, said there was enough circumstantial evidence to find Katsumata guilty.
“Overall, circumstantial evidence proves the defendant is the culprit without reasonable doubt,” the ruling said.
Among the circumstantial evidence examined, a letter Katsumata wrote to his mother was considered significant by the high court, which regarded the correspondence to be an apology for the murder.
In the letter, which he handed to his mother after confessing to the charge, Katsumata referred to “the incident that I caused,” and said, “I am really sorry for causing trouble.”
The high court said some key parts of Katsumata’s story were reliable but acknowledged he may have lied about some details because they seemed to contradict the condition of the girl’s body and the site where she was found.
Amid a lack of compelling physical evidence, such as a murder weapon, a focal point had been the credibility of Katsumata’s confessions during his detention on a different charge in February 2014. He was arrested on suspicion of murder in June the same year, and gave conflicting statements before settling on denial in May 2015.
The district court had found the defendant’s recorded confessions credible, saying they included “details and vividness that can only be offered by the culprit.”
His defense counsel, meanwhile, had argued that Katsumata made false confessions during the illegal interrogations and that there are doubts about their credibility, given that the condition of the girl’s body and the site where it was found both contradicted them.
But the prosecutors denied that any coercion or maneuvering was used during the process and insisted that the interrogations were conducted appropriately. They said the grounds used by lawyers to point out the contradictions in the confessions were “unscientific.”
“The ruling put a lot of focus on Katsumata’s letter to his mother, but the other (pieces of) circumstantial evidence available were merely ruled as ‘consistent’ with each other . . . The reasoning behind the ruling is sort of patchy, with some parts that are meticulous and others that are very rough,” explained Kaku Imamura, one of the defendant’s lawyers, after the ruling.
“There were some victories for the defense in terms of the legal arguments we put forward,” added Hideki Kashima, another member of the defense counsel, referring in particular to the high court’s findings on the legality of recorded interrogations.
“That being said, those victories don’t mean anything, given that the court handed down a life imprisonment sentence,” Kashima said.
The victim vanished on her way home and was found dead in a forest some 60 km away from where she was last seen, with 10 stab wounds to the chest.
Her father issued a statement saying that he is disappointed that Katsumata continues to plead not guilty, but welcomes the high court’s ruling.
“It took a long time, but I’m relieved. We hope this ruling will become final as early as possible to end this trial,” he said.
Japan began using audiovisual recordings of interrogations about 10 years ago, but the government is expanding the scope of the coverage. The system is aimed at preventing the police and prosecutors from conducting illegal investigations.
The location of the murder has been changed from "a forest road in Hitachiomiya, Ibaraki Prefecture" to "somewhere within Ibaraki or Tochigi prefectures or thereabouts," and the time has been adjusted from "around 4 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2005" to "between around 2:38 p.m. on Dec. 1 (the time when the victim is believed to have parted with her classmate on the way home from school) and about 4 a.m. on Dec. 2."
Presiding Judge Toshiaki Fujii approved the change, which was requested by the prosecution to broaden the scope of the initial charge.
Katsumata was found guilty in a lay judge trial at the Utsunomiya District Court in April 2016, after the court accepted as reliable statements the defendant reportedly made during the investigation, including, "I made the victim stand up on a forest road, held her right shoulder and then stabbed her 10 times over a period of about 6 to 7 seconds."
However, in appeal hearings that began in October 2017, Katsumata's defense team pointed out that "the victim bled considerably but there weren't many bloodstains at the crime scene," and claimed that Katsumata had been led into a confession. Later, the Tokyo High Court urged the prosecution to submit a request to change the cause of action, which the latter did in January 2018.
In response, the defense team stated, "The points of dispute were thoroughly debated in the initial trial. If the cause of action is going to be changed more than 18 months after appeal, it's possible that the whole framework of evidence needs to be re-examined."
Subsequently, the Tokyo High Court permitted the request to change, saying, "In the first trial, the need to change the cause of action was overlooked. After the changes, what the defense team claims will not change fundamentally."
The next hearing is set for June 8. It is expected that the defense and prosecution will exchange opinions before concluding the trial.
UTSUNOMIYA, TOCHIGI PREF. – A man on Friday was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a 7-year-old girl in Tochigi Prefecture in 2005 in a case that centered solely on dubious confessions rather than physical evidence.
The ruling handed to 33-year-old Takuya Katsumata by a panel of professional and lay judges at the Utsunomiya District Court was in line with the prosecutors’ demands.
But given the failure of the Tochigi police to recover the murder weapon, the credibility of Katsumata’s confessions — allegedly made under duress — became a major point of contention when his trial began in late February.
According to the indictment, Katsumata stabbed Yuki Yoshida to death on Dec. 2, 2005, a day after abducting her on her way home from school in what was then Imaichi, Tochigi Prefecture.
He was arrested on suspicion of murder in June 2014 but pleaded not guilty in May 2015.
The defense alleged that Katsumata was maltreated during detention and that while he gave conflicting statements during the interrogation process, he eventually settled on a plea of not guilty.
The prosecutors said that a video-taped confession showing Katsumata describing the murder with gestures was concrete and realistic.
But the defense counsel questioned its credibility, noting that the time he said he killed the girl did not match the time of her death as deduced from the contents of her stomach. The defense also said police coerced him into changing small details in his earlier statements during the initial investigation phase.
Moreover, Katsumata’s defense team also claimed he was subject to violence during detention and was told his punishment would be reduced if he admitted guilt.
The victim’s family demanded a life sentence.
“Our suffering from losing an irreplaceable life cannot be healed. We cannot even allow the defendant to run away from his sin through the death penalty,” they said in a statement read out at the trial.
Kyodo, Staff Report Aug 3, 2018 Article history
Supporters hold up banners saying 'Unfair ruling' and 'Appeal dismissed' after the Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld a life sentence handed down by the Utsunomiya District Court in 2016 for Takuya Katsumata. | KYODO
The Tokyo High Court sentenced a man to life in prison Friday for the 2005 murder of a girl in Tochigi Prefecture, retaining a lower court’s punishment but repealing its ruling for excessive reliance on interrogation footage.
Takuya Katsumata, 36, who was arrested more than eight years after the body of 7-year-old Yuki Yoshida was found, initially admitted to murdering her but later retracted his statements. His lawyer immediately appealed Friday’s ruling.
The first-grader was found dead in a mountain forest in Ibaraki Prefecture a day after she vanished on Dec. 1, 2005, while on her way home from elementary school in what was then the city of Imaichi.
In the ruling, the high court expressed “strong doubts” about the Utsunomiya District Court’s heavy reliance on video footage of the interrogations to gauge the credibility of the defendant’s confession. The court said using the footage in such a manner could lead to a judgment based on “impressions,” rather than objective thought.
“It was illegal that the lower court ruling found the defendant guilty through interrogation recordings,” Toshiaki Fujii, the presiding judge, said.
The was in contrast to the Utsunomiya District Court’s ruling, which had judged it was not possible to find Katsumata guilty solely based on circumstantial evidence, and relied on confessions he’d made in recorded interrogations.
Despite reaching the same conclusion as the lower court on his guilt, as well as the need to hand down a life sentence, the high court quashed the content of the April 2016 ruling by the Utsunomiya District Court, saying its determination of the crime based on recorded interrogations was “illegal.”
Footage of the interrogations was shown for more than seven hours at the district court, leading Katsumata’s defense team to argue that it gave lay judges the impression that the defendant was guilty.
But the high court, which only uses professional judges, said there was enough circumstantial evidence to find Katsumata guilty.
“Overall, circumstantial evidence proves the defendant is the culprit without reasonable doubt,” the ruling said.
Among the circumstantial evidence examined, a letter Katsumata wrote to his mother was considered significant by the high court, which regarded the correspondence to be an apology for the murder.
In the letter, which he handed to his mother after confessing to the charge, Katsumata referred to “the incident that I caused,” and said, “I am really sorry for causing trouble.”
The high court said some key parts of Katsumata’s story were reliable but acknowledged he may have lied about some details because they seemed to contradict the condition of the girl’s body and the site where she was found.
Amid a lack of compelling physical evidence, such as a murder weapon, a focal point had been the credibility of Katsumata’s confessions during his detention on a different charge in February 2014. He was arrested on suspicion of murder in June the same year, and gave conflicting statements before settling on denial in May 2015.
The district court had found the defendant’s recorded confessions credible, saying they included “details and vividness that can only be offered by the culprit.”
His defense counsel, meanwhile, had argued that Katsumata made false confessions during the illegal interrogations and that there are doubts about their credibility, given that the condition of the girl’s body and the site where it was found both contradicted them.
But the prosecutors denied that any coercion or maneuvering was used during the process and insisted that the interrogations were conducted appropriately. They said the grounds used by lawyers to point out the contradictions in the confessions were “unscientific.”
“The ruling put a lot of focus on Katsumata’s letter to his mother, but the other (pieces of) circumstantial evidence available were merely ruled as ‘consistent’ with each other . . . The reasoning behind the ruling is sort of patchy, with some parts that are meticulous and others that are very rough,” explained Kaku Imamura, one of the defendant’s lawyers, after the ruling.
“There were some victories for the defense in terms of the legal arguments we put forward,” added Hideki Kashima, another member of the defense counsel, referring in particular to the high court’s findings on the legality of recorded interrogations.
“That being said, those victories don’t mean anything, given that the court handed down a life imprisonment sentence,” Kashima said.
The victim vanished on her way home and was found dead in a forest some 60 km away from where she was last seen, with 10 stab wounds to the chest.
Her father issued a statement saying that he is disappointed that Katsumata continues to plead not guilty, but welcomes the high court’s ruling.
“It took a long time, but I’m relieved. We hope this ruling will become final as early as possible to end this trial,” he said.
Japan began using audiovisual recordings of interrogations about 10 years ago, but the government is expanding the scope of the coverage. The system is aimed at preventing the police and prosecutors from conducting illegal investigations.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tokyo High Court accepts change to time, place of Tochigi Pref. schoolgirl's 2005 murder
March 30, 2018 (Mainichi Japan)
The Tokyo High Court permitted on March 29 a request to change the cause of action concerning the 2005 murder of a 7-year-old girl in Imaichi (now part of Nikko), Tochigi Prefecture.
- • 【Related】Forensic experts offer opposing views in appeal trial over young girl's murder
- •
The location of the murder has been changed from "a forest road in Hitachiomiya, Ibaraki Prefecture" to "somewhere within Ibaraki or Tochigi prefectures or thereabouts," and the time has been adjusted from "around 4 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2005" to "between around 2:38 p.m. on Dec. 1 (the time when the victim is believed to have parted with her classmate on the way home from school) and about 4 a.m. on Dec. 2."
Presiding Judge Toshiaki Fujii approved the change, which was requested by the prosecution to broaden the scope of the initial charge.
Katsumata was found guilty in a lay judge trial at the Utsunomiya District Court in April 2016, after the court accepted as reliable statements the defendant reportedly made during the investigation, including, "I made the victim stand up on a forest road, held her right shoulder and then stabbed her 10 times over a period of about 6 to 7 seconds."
However, in appeal hearings that began in October 2017, Katsumata's defense team pointed out that "the victim bled considerably but there weren't many bloodstains at the crime scene," and claimed that Katsumata had been led into a confession. Later, the Tokyo High Court urged the prosecution to submit a request to change the cause of action, which the latter did in January 2018.
In response, the defense team stated, "The points of dispute were thoroughly debated in the initial trial. If the cause of action is going to be changed more than 18 months after appeal, it's possible that the whole framework of evidence needs to be re-examined."
Subsequently, the Tokyo High Court permitted the request to change, saying, "In the first trial, the need to change the cause of action was overlooked. After the changes, what the defense team claims will not change fundamentally."
The next hearing is set for June 8. It is expected that the defense and prosecution will exchange opinions before concluding the trial.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Man gets life for Tochigi girl’s murder despite lack of physical evidence
Kyodo
- • Apr 8, 2016
- •
UTSUNOMIYA, TOCHIGI PREF. – A man on Friday was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a 7-year-old girl in Tochigi Prefecture in 2005 in a case that centered solely on dubious confessions rather than physical evidence.
The ruling handed to 33-year-old Takuya Katsumata by a panel of professional and lay judges at the Utsunomiya District Court was in line with the prosecutors’ demands.
But given the failure of the Tochigi police to recover the murder weapon, the credibility of Katsumata’s confessions — allegedly made under duress — became a major point of contention when his trial began in late February.
According to the indictment, Katsumata stabbed Yuki Yoshida to death on Dec. 2, 2005, a day after abducting her on her way home from school in what was then Imaichi, Tochigi Prefecture.
He was arrested on suspicion of murder in June 2014 but pleaded not guilty in May 2015.
The defense alleged that Katsumata was maltreated during detention and that while he gave conflicting statements during the interrogation process, he eventually settled on a plea of not guilty.
The prosecutors said that a video-taped confession showing Katsumata describing the murder with gestures was concrete and realistic.
But the defense counsel questioned its credibility, noting that the time he said he killed the girl did not match the time of her death as deduced from the contents of her stomach. The defense also said police coerced him into changing small details in his earlier statements during the initial investigation phase.
Moreover, Katsumata’s defense team also claimed he was subject to violence during detention and was told his punishment would be reduced if he admitted guilt.
The victim’s family demanded a life sentence.
“Our suffering from losing an irreplaceable life cannot be healed. We cannot even allow the defendant to run away from his sin through the death penalty,” they said in a statement read out at the trial.
A case for recording all interrogations
Japan Times editorial
• Apr 13, 2016 Article history
- •
In the case of Takuya Katsumata, 33, found guilty of abducting and killing Yuki Yoshida in the Tochigi city then known as Imaichi in 2005, prosecutors lacked key material evidence linking him to the crime and relied on confessions made during interrogations to build their case. The Utsunomiya District Court on Friday gave him a life term as demanded by the prosecutors, judging his confession — which he reversed in court saying it had been coerced — to be credible enough to convict him. Katsumata’s defense plans to appeal.
The prosecution provided the team of three professional and six lay judges at the court a total of about seven hours of video-taped records of Katsumata’s interrogation — in an effort to show that his confessions were not obtained illegally or coerced by the interrogators. In the video shown in the courtroom, Katsumata was seen frequently wavering during the interrogations — admitting to having killed the victim at one point, denying he committed the crime, and then saying he did it — and occasionally reacting emotionally to questions. He signed his deposition papers, which was adopted as evidence by the court.
As Katsumata had pleaded innocent and the prosecutors lacked hard evidence linking him to the crime, the focus of the trial was on whether he had made the confession of his own will — or had been coerced into making false statements — and whether his statements matched objective facts. The video must have played a crucial role in convincing the judges that his confession was voluntary. The court determined that his statements during the interrogation had concrete details that nobody other than the killer could have known.
The problem was that the seven-hour video did not cover the entire interrogation process. Some of the interrogations were not recorded, including his initial confession. And the 80 hours that had been recorded were whittled down to the scenes that both the prosecutors and the defense counsel had consented to show in court.
According to the prosecutors, Katsumata first confessed to killing the girl in February 2014 while he was detained for unrelated offenses — after which the prosecutors started video-recording his interrogations. He was also subsequently questioned by police on a voluntary basis for 3½ months — for which no electronic records were taken — until he was served a new warrant on suspicion of murder in June 2014.
During the trial, Katsumata’s defense argued that he had been led and coerced by the investigators to make a false confession before the video-recording of his interrogation began. During closed-door interrogations over an extended period, the investigators pressured him to confess, and led him in that direction by suggesting that he would face a more lenient sentence if he admitted his guilt, the lawyers charged. Katsumata told the court that a police interrogator forced him to verbally repeat an apology for murdering the victim 50 times — which he said gave him the illusion that he really killed the girl — and that he was slapped in the face when he denied doing it. The prosecution and police said these charges were fabricated by him and his defense to cast doubts on the confession.
Such questions would not have come up if the entire interrogation process had been recorded. Due to the incomplete recording and the conflicting accounts by the prosecution and the defense, the judges — especially the citizens randomly chosen to serve as lay judges — must have faced a tough decision as to whether the confession was voluntary and credible. The ruling was due at the end of March, but the court delayed handing down the ruling for eight days.
In recent years, the police and prosecutors have begun electronic recording of their interrogation process on a voluntary basis — after they faced public criticism that false confessions obtained through coercive and other illegal means had resulted in wrongful charges and convictions. But if investigators are given the discretion to selectively decide what video records of the interrogations to make and keep, the records can be used in a way that can misleadingly influence the judges hearing the cases.
The bill on reform of the criminal justice system, now before the Upper House after clearing the Lower House last year, makes it mandatory for police and prosecutors to electronically record the entire interrogation process of arrested suspects. But the requirement applies only to criminal cases that will be handled in lay judge trials, such as murder cases, and cases that had been dug up by prosecutors’ own investigations. These together account for a mere 3 percent of all criminal cases.
If suspects under arrest for offenses not subject to the requirement confess to crimes such as murder — as in Katsumata’s case — the process that led to their confessions will not be recorded. The investigators will be given the discretion to skip the electronic recording if they determine that otherwise they cannot obtain meaningful statements from the suspects. Given the loopholes that will remain in the system, discussions should continue on whether the measures are sufficient to eliminate the chance that wrongful convictions based on false confessions will take place.