Junya Hattori

the Tokyo High Court sentenced a 33-year-old man to death for abducting, raping and burning alive a female college student in January 2002.
Presiding Judge Kenjiro Tao said Junya Hattori "has a deep-rooted tendency for committing crimes and there is little room for rehabilitation," and overturned the defendant's life sentence.
The defense counsel had asked for leniency, saying Hattori had done some soul-searching, apologized for the crime and was unlikely to commit another crime.
Hattori abducted Sachiko Yamane, 19, late at night on a street in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Jan. 22, 2002. He locked her in his car and raped her.
The next day, Hattori poured kerosene over the teen in a mountain forest and set her alight.
He had not known the victim, whom he abducted as she was riding home on her bicycle.
"It was a heinous crime in which the accused indulged in lawlessness at the mercy of his desires. The court cannot but shudder with horror at the inhumane acts of the accused, who burned the victim to death as if she were garbage because he considered her presence a burden," the judge said.
The judge rejected a lower court ruling that consideration should be given to his background and that the crime had not been carefully thought out. Hattori was brought up in poverty by a violent father.
Hattori's "criminal tendency derives largely from his own character," the judge said.
There are "limits to considering his childhood background (as a factor for leniency), given that he committed the crime when he was nearly 30 years old."
Both the prosecutors and Hattori's defense had appealed the ruling by the Shizuoka District Court. The prosecutors called for the death penalty; the defense wanted his sentence reduced.