Japan's 1st lay judge trial to start on Mon. in Tokyo+

TOKYO, July 30 Kyodo -
Japan's first criminal trial to be overseen by citizen judges will begin in
Tokyo on Monday and run for four days, with attention focused on how much
change the new lay judge system can bring to court proceedings often criticized
for being abstruse.

The defendant, a 72-year-old man, is expected to admit to killing a neighbor of
South Korean nationality in May after a quarrel, and the main point of dispute
will be what punishment he deserves, according to his lawyers.
Despite the launch of the trial at the Tokyo District Court, the public remain
reluctant to be involved in handing down sentences, including the death
penalty, with the controversial lifetime secrecy obligation imposed on lay
judges.
Prosecutors indicted the man a day after the new system was launched on May 21,
and the case did not require long pretrial preparations as it has few points of
controversy, and has thus become the first to be tried under the lay judge
system.
''I want to conduct the defense in a way that will enable lay judges to easily
follow the trial by watching and listening,'' the defendant's lawyer Shunji
Date said after the trial schedule was fixed in June, while a Tokyo prosecutor
vowed to try to ''precisely'' prove the prosecution's arguments to the lay
judges.
Besides the legal profession's efforts to seek a ''comprehensible style'' of
trial, such as adding explanations to technical terms, a change is also
expected in how the defendant will appear in front of the lay judges.
In criminal trials, a defendant usually enters the court room in handcuffs and
with a rope around his or her waist, although they are taken off once the
judges have entered.
But in the first lay judge trial, the defendant, Katsuyoshi Fujii, will wear
sandals that look like leather shoes and his handcuffs and rope will be taken
off before the judges enter the room, so as not to give the lay judges the
impression that the defendant is guilty simply from his appearance.
Under the lay judge system, in principle, six citizen judges will examine
murder and other serious crimes together with three professional judges at
district courts and reach a verdict based on a conditional majority.
Should the judges find the defendant guilty, they will then determine the
sentence. In this sense, Japan's lay judge system differs from jury systems in
countries such as the United States and Britain, where jurors determine the
guilt or innocence of the defendant and the judges determine the sentence.
The four-day process will begin Monday morning, with the court choosing six
citizen judges from candidates randomly-selected from eligible voters. Three
others will be placed on the reserve list in case a vacancy occurs. The court
has sent summons to 73 candidates.
The first hearing of the trial will start Monday afternoon, which will include
the defendant's plea and opening statements by the prosecutors and defense
lawyers.
The second and third hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday will include questioning
witnesses, the victim's family and the defendant himself, as well as closing
arguments by the prosecutors and the defense lawyers.
Judges will then hold closed-door deliberations to discuss the verdict and
sentence and will announce the outcome on Thursday.
According to the indictment, Fujii stabbed a 66-year-old woman living in his
neighborhood several times with a survival knife on the street in Tokyo's
Adachi Ward on May 1. She died several hours later at a hospital.
Police have quoted Fujii as saying that he ''got infuriated and stabbed'' the
woman after a quarrel. He got angry because plastic bottles placed in his
garden were knocked over by a motorbike that belonged to the woman's son, the
police have said. He was arrested later in the day.
With Fujii basically expected to admit to the charge, the main issue in the
trial will likely be how greatly he desired to kill her, his lawyers said. The
lawyers are expected to ask for leniency by highlighting the long discord that
existed between the victim and the defendant before the murder took place.
Satoru Oshiro, a lawyer heading a civic group which aims to promote discussions
on the lay judge system, said the public is mainly concerned about the lifetime
secrecy obligation and whether a person who is unwilling to serve as a judge
still has to accept the job when appointed.
The law on lay judges sets a maximum penalty of six months in prison or 500,000
yen in fines for those who leak such information as who said what during
closed-door deliberations. It also sets a maximum 100,000 yen fine for lay
judges for not showing up at designated dates ''without due reasons.''
While the government has been promoting the lay judge system since it passed
into law in 2004, a recent government survey has shown that about one in four
people are still unwilling to serve as lay judges even if it is an obligation,
citing such reasons as the difficulties they feel in making judgments.
A press conference attended by the people who served as lay judges is also
slated after the trial ends on Thursday so that media can ask about their
impressions of serving as judges and other information they are allowed to talk
about.
==Kyodo