Tomoyuki Mizuno still vividly remembers writing his first not-guilty verdict: It was for a case where a young mother was accused of killing her baby just after she gave birth.

The young woman had the baby in an office restroom and was indicted for causing death by suffocation by putting her foot on the baby’s face.

Mizuno, 59, is a former judge for the case, now a professor at Hosei University’s law school.

After listening closely to the mother, who denied that she killed her own child, Mizuno discovered many odd elements in the prosecutors’ interrogation report.

According to the report, the mother allegedly said she “felt the mouth of my uterus open.”

But an expert who was consulted stated that this phenomenon is impossible. The bizarre description suggested the report was fabricated by the male investigators.

It also surfaced that the woman was forced to sit on a hard wooden chair just a few days after her delivery. Her health had not yet fully recovered, but she was questioned for many hours while she was in a dazed and confused state.

A doctor suggested in court that the child likely died of asphyxia at birth. Based on those factors, Mizuno ruled she was innocent.

Japan has a famously high conviction rate, as prosecutors are unlikely to pursue cases that they don’t believe will result in a conviction. But Mizuno, who has observed a concerning trend in prosecutors becoming too preoccupied with selecting winnable cases and too busy from juggling heavy workloads, is more concerned with the specifics in the administration of justice.

Over his career, he has acquitted defendants in eight cases while he was an active judge.

He said that a major force behind his decision to acquit in this case, among others, was what he learned from a masterly judge who had a massive influence on his life and career.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Born in Sendai in 1962, Mizuno went to the capital to study at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law and, in 1988, was appointed as a judge. For his first job in the role, he was sent to the Urawa District Court in Saitama Prefecture outside Tokyo for criminal trial work.

His reputation and approach to casework stems from working under the wing of an old-school judge there who methodically weighed details and arguments in his cases, considering every possibility from every angle.

Homicides and other major incidents are jointly dealt with by three judges through deliberations, which was how Mizuno encountered Akira Kitani, now 83, who was the presiding judge there at the time.

“Kitani is usually gentle, but rigorous with his work,” said Mizuno, looking back on those days.

For these cases, the justice with the shortest career is supposed to be seated at the left end of the judicial bench and to write down the ruling. That was Mizuno’s spot.

Many presiding judges let young members develop verdicts after a single meeting, but Kitani would always discuss the cases with Mizuno repeatedly before he started working on the written sentences.

Although there is typically no deadline for completing the outlines of a court decision, Kitani told Mizuno to finish the task by a certain date and ensured he never missed his target.

Mizuno was initially puzzled by Kitani’s rigid methods. He often questioned his own decisions, asking, “Should I really go so far?”

Two to three months following his appointment, Mizuno served as a judge for a rape case--what would now be considered a case of “forcible sexual intercourse” under the current law.

While the defendant insisted he had “obtained her consent,” the reported circumstances and other evidence pointed to the contrary.

After examining everything, Mizuno casually brought up the case with Kitani in the judge's office.

“He must be proven guilty,” Mizuno asserted.

That was met with an unexpected reply from Kitani.

“We should (seriously consider) all that the accused said and examine the evidence.”

This sudden suggestion about an apparently guilty defendant’s testimony surprised Mizuno and changed his perspective about his job. He re-examined the evidence, considering the possibility that the victimized woman had consented.

In the end, Mizuno still found the man guilty.

But Kitani’s advice showed Mizuno how methodically a judge should analyze and scrutinize details in a grave matter, even if the conclusion seems obvious.

Another memorable ruling by Mizuno was over an incident where a married man was killed by another woman that he had been intimate with for many years. She was much younger than the victim.

“Killing someone, of course, constitutes a crime. But the woman must have felt she devoted her entire life to the victim and that he deprived her of her life,” recalled Mizuno.

“Such a background seemed to exist.”

Mizuno committed himself to developing the ruling and handed down a suspended sentence that took her particular circumstances into account.

Kitani, a stern man who rarely offers praise to anyone, said the written verdict was “well done.”

When Mizuno saw sloppy work by some chief judges at his second and third workplaces, he realized just how rigorous Kitani was.

All of Kitani’s more than 30 not-guilty verdicts have been upheld, allowing him to make his name as a judge who composes rulings so thorough and well thought out that prosecutors ultimately give up on appealing to higher courts.

Asked what sets Kitani apart and lets him put his entire heart into his work, Mizuno said it is “likely because of his childhood experiences.”

Kitani was born as the second son of Minoru Kitani, a 9-dan go player who ran a prestigious go dojo. But he failed to become a pro player and continued to harbor a sense of failure over the board game.

“He was surrounded by exceptional talents and compared with Cho Chi-hun and other great players,” Mizuno said. “He apparently believed he must work as hard as possible because go players would beat their brains out (to become the best).”

PRO FORMA PROBLEMS

Judges often fall under criticism these days for not understanding how the public thinks. One prominent example is a court’s decision to acquit a father accused of forcible sexual intercourse against his daughter. The ruling was widely protested by women.

Mizuno criticized many in the current legal community for having misplaced priorities.

“They apparently work in a perfunctory manner,” he said. “They are preoccupied with making decisions (on trials) superficially. Something is being overlooked.”

Mizuno noted that many judges these days will rush to conclusions because “they are very busy, first of all, as they have a much larger amount of clerical work with the introduction of the citizen judge system.”

Penal judges are constantly juggling dozens of cases. The creation of the citizen judge and victim participation mechanisms have drastically compounded their workload, according to Mizuno.

For example, judges now must determine, alongside other staff members, the routes that victims should take outside the courtrooms on their way to provide testimony, so that they do not encounter the defendants.

Many judges are concentrated on reducing the backlog of cases, known as “deficits” in the legal community. But Mizuno said this makes it difficult for them to adhere to the principle of in dubio pro reo, a Latin phrase that means the defendant should not be convicted when doubts of their guilt remain.

“There are a lot of cases where the rulings might have been overturned, like in Othello, if slightly more detailed examinations had been provided,” said Mizuno. “Taking a step forward and having the courage to return (to the details) are significant.”

Mizuno argues that because police and prosecutors must uphold their honor, it becomes “difficult for them to stop cases once they start toward indictment.”

He said only judges can stop that process when it goes awry.

In 2012, Mizuno submitted a request to retire to “nurture younger people” into the legal profession.

He is now sharing the lessons he learned from his master with his juniors at the law school, with the hopes he can pass down the same level of passion and rigor that Kitani did for him.

And law students are not the only people he is teaching.

Mizuno recently served as a court-affairs adviser for the TV drama “Ichikei no Karasu” (The crow in the No. 1 criminal division) that centered on a penal judge, which was aired this past spring by Fuji Television Network Inc.

When he was asked by an actor what he looks at in trials, he replied, “The defendants.”

The expressions they show when the indictments are read aloud and during testimony can sometimes be important indicators for making decisions, he said.

He still clearly remembers how the mother in the case of alleged infanticide had responded when she was given a not-guilty verdict.

“She silently exhaled, in a sigh of relief.”