1st murder cases listed for lay judge trial+

TOKYO, May 22 Kyodo -
Prosecutors nationwide indicted on Friday nine criminal suspects, including two
murder suspects, to be tried under the newly introduced lay judge system,
bringing the total number of such cases to 13.
A day after the introduction of the system, the two murder suspects were
indicted by Tokyo and Fukuoka prosecutors. Suspects in other serious crimes
such as robbery resulting in injuries or attempted arson were indicted the
previous day, but murder suspects were not included.
Also included in the 13 cases were a 21-year-old male university student of
Mexican nationality and a 29-year-old female office worker of Canadian
nationality, who were both indicted by Chiba prosecutors over drug smuggling.
Lay judge trials for the 13 cases can begin as early as late July if each case
has little to argue over and its pretrial agreement procedures end swiftly.
Such procedures involve prosecutors, defense lawyers and professional judges
with the goal of narrowing down the arguments in order to keep the trial period
short.
Under the lay judge system that kicked off Thursday, lay judges will engage in
the process of determining the verdict, and in the case of a guilty verdict,
what kind of sentence the person should be given.
==Kyodo