the Supreme Court of Japan upheld lower court rulings sentencing Haruno Sakamoto

the Supreme Court of Japan upheld lower court rulings sentencing Haruno Sakamoto, a 77-year-old woman, to death for killing her husband and another woman for insurance money. It was the first time the top court had backed the death penalty for a defendant over 70 years old since the earliest Supreme Court records dating to 1966. According to the ruling, Sakamoto conspired with her younger sister and brother-in-law to suffocate her husband, 54, at her house in Muroto, Kochi Prefecture, in January 1987, and obtained about 50 million yen in life insurance. In August 1992, she killed a 60-year-old woman in conspiracy with a former insurance agent to obtain insurance money.