Yuki ENDO

A 21-year-old man was sentenced to death on Thursday over a 2021 murder-arson case, marking the first time a defendant age 18 or 19 at the time of a crime has been given the death penalty following the lowering of the age of adulthood from 20 to 18 in 2022.

The Kofu District Court in Yamanashi Prefecture gave Yuki Endo the death penalty for killing the parents of a girl he went to high school with and setting their home on fire.

Presiding Judge Jun Mikami said that the defendant had “the full ability to take responsibility for the crime” and that “his age is not a reason to avoid the death penalty.”

In October 2021, Endo, then 19 years old, went to the home of a teenage girl he had a crush on, stabbed her parents to death, hit her younger sister with a machete and set the house on fire, according to prosecutors. The teenage girl did not sustain any injuries.

Endo later turned himself in, submitting a letter saying he held a grudge against the fellow student because she rejected his romantic advances.

The focus of the trial was on Endo's mental state and whether he was criminally liable for his acts at the time of the incident. Prosecutors, who sought the death penalty, said that he was and that he killed the girl's parents to hurt her.

The defense lawyers, meanwhile, said he should not be held accountable, argued that Endo was mentally deficient at the time.

According to the ruling, it was judged that Endo was liable for his actions and that there was little prospect of him being rehabilitated, which lead to the sentence of capital punishment.

Endo nodded in court when given the sentence. But he placed his hands on his face when the judge told him at the end of the trial to "not to give up thinking." Even after the court was dismissed, he stayed in his seat looking straight ahead.

It is the first time since the juvenile law was revised that a death penalty has been handed down to a "specified juvenile" defendant age 18 or 19 at the time of their crime. The revision was made to make the criminal punishment of 18 and 19 years olds stricter.

Following the lowering of the age of adulthood from 18 to 20 in April 2022, the regulations around the trial procedures for individuals who committed criminal acts at the age of 18 or 19 were amended.

Defendants in this group are treated as special cases, whereby they are subject to the juvenile law but are treated the same as people age 20 and over and given appropriate sentences in severe criminal cases such as murder or rape.

This meant that the name and other personal information of the defendant could be released to the public, something that is not possible for juvenile delinquents.