Photo/Illutration The government building housing the Otsu District Public Prosecutors Office (Chifumi Shinya)

OTSU--Red-faced prosecutors here were forced to apologize to a 21-year-old mother after they submitted the wrong evidence to a court to back up an indictment.

The decision by prosecutors to withdraw the indictment and request a retraction is extremely unusual. The Otsu District Court on Sept. 18 agreed to dismiss the case at the behest of prosecutors.

The woman was indicted for inflicting a bodily injury to her newborn by biting the baby’s arm.

The case was based on tooth marks found on the baby’s arm, but the tooth mark taken from the baby was mistakenly labeled as being the mother’s.

The mother was detained for 23 days after she was arrested by Shiga prefectural police on suspicion of inflicting a bodily injury.

Both police and prosecutors have apologized to the mother for their blunder.

According to the Otsu District Public Prosecutors Office and the lawyer for the mother, the woman was arrested in October 2019 on suspicion of inflicting an injury requiring a week’s worth of treatment.

She was alleged to have bitten the left arm of her one-month-old infant between late August and early September.

The mother was indicted in November 2019.

However, during the second trial session on Jan. 28 in Otsu District Court, the forensic expert handling the tooth mark for the prefectural police mentioned during questioning by the defendant’s lawyer that the tooth mark found on the baby’s arm and presented as evidence may have been mistakenly switched.

Further investigation confirmed that the tooth mark was indeed of someone other than the mother. However, prefectural police have not divulged who that person is.

The investigation into the injury inflicted on the child is continuing.

According to Shiga prefectural police, tooth marks were taken from a number of individuals following a spate of calls about possible abuse of the baby.

When the forensic expert was duplicating the tooth marks in plaster, the one taken from another person was mistakenly labeled as coming from the mother.

The lawyer for the mother held a news conference on Sept. 18 and passed on a comment from the mother asking that the police not be so over-confident in going about their work.

The lawyer also blasted the investigative methods used by Shiga police.

When the mother initially denied the allegation, she was told by police that other family members would be called in for questioning. Feeling under pressure, she finally agreed to confess.

However, at their own news conference, police officials denied any problems arose during the course of the questioning.

Mayumi Yamagami, the deputy chief prosecutor with the Otsu Distric Public Prosecutors Office, held her own news conference on Sept. 18 and apologized to the mother by saying, “We are sorry for not realizing a major mistake had been made concerning evidence.”

(This article was written by Chifumi Shinya and Senichiro Ando.)

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