the Osaka District Court, in Japan, acquitted a 54-year-old...

the Osaka District Court, in Japan, acquitted a 54-year-old man who had been sentenced to death for allegedly killing his daughter-in-law and her son and setting fire to their apartment in Osaka in 2002. The ruling came after the Supreme Court repealed lower court guilty verdicts against Takemitsu Mori, a prison officer now on leave, and ordered the district court in April 2010 to retry his case, citing the possibility of factual errors in the previous rulings. Mori was arrested in November 2002, seven months after his daughter-in-law Mayumi, 28, and her 1-year-old son Toma were found dead in their apartment in the city of Osaka on April 14. He was also accused of setting fire to the apartment and burning it down. He had consistently pleaded not guilty, but the Osaka District Court gave him a life sentence in 2005, which the Osaka High Court then changed to the death penalty the following year. In his decision, Presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima said, "The court cannot recognize that the defendant entered the apartment on the day of the crime."