a death sentence of a man, who was declared guilty of murder, was overturned to life

a death sentence of a man, who was declared guilty of murder, was overturned to life imprisonment by the Tokyo High Court. Tatsumi Tateyama was charged of robbery and murder in 2009 and was sentenced with capital punishment on 30 June 2011. The victim was Yukari Ogino, a 21-year old student of Chiba University. In October that year, Ogino had just arrived in her apartment in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture when Tateyama came to rob her. He also threatened the student with a knife and ended up killing her. According to presiding Judge Hitoshi Murase, Tateyama "did not have any intent to kill when he demanded money and valuables." "There has been a tendency in precedents not to elect the death sentence when there was only 1 victim killed in a robbery-murder, and it was not premeditated," Murase added. Despite the defendant's criminal record, the presiding judge claimed that such would not be taken into account to warrant capital punishment. "While it was a result deliberated on by lay and professional judges, [the sentence] has to be overturned so long as the penalty chosen was an error." “In the capital trial of Tatsumi Tateyama, one lay judge slept repeatedly during the first eight trial sessions… Chief Judge Masanori Hatoko also dozed during the trial,” Professor David T Johnson wrote in his analysis “Progress and Problems in Japanese Capital Punishment”, published in the study “Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia,” edited by Roger Hood and Surya Deva in 2013.