Photo/Illutration Judges deliberate the sentence in the murder and arson case committed by a man when he was 19 at Kofu District Court on Jan. 18. (Pool)

KOFU--A man who killed the parents of a girl who had spurned him when he was 19 became the first person sentenced to death for a crime committed at age 18 or 19 after the Juvenile Law was revised and the legal adulthood age lowered.

Yuki Endo, who is now 21, was given the death sentence on Jan. 18 by the Kofu District Court as sought by prosecutors. 

Endo was accused of murder and arson charges for fatally stabbing a married couple and torching their home here in 2021.

“The crime was persistent and brutal, driven by a strong intent to kill,” said Presiding Judge Jun Mikami. “Even when fully considering that the defendant was 19 years old at the time of the crime, it does not justify disqualifying the death penalty.”

Under the revised Juvenile Law, which took effect in April 2022, people aged 18 and 19 are considered “specified juveniles” and their names can be disclosed if they are indicted.

The revised law took effect at the same time the age of adulthood in Japan was lowered from 20 to 18.

Endo was the first specified juvenile whose name was publicly disclosed by prosecutors.

According to the ruling, Endo stabbed a 55-year-old company employee and his 50-year-old wife to death at their home in Kofu on Oct. 12, 2021.

He also hit their second daughter in the head with a machete, injuring her. He then set their house on fire, burning it to the ground, the ruling said.

Judges determined that the defendant was fully criminally responsible, based on the testimonies including that of a psychiatrist who conducted a mental evaluation during the investigation.

They said that taking two lives is an extremely heinous offense. 

They added that the motive, stemming from the despair and anger that Endo felt from the rejection by the couple’s eldest daughter, whom he had feelings for, was “extremely self-centered and unreasonable.”

The court noted that even if Endo's difficult upbringing had influenced his motive, the effect was limited. It also said that he showed no clear signs of remorse and apology, making it unlikely that he could be rehabilitated.

The court concluded that the death penalty was unavoidable, saying that “there is a limit even taking into account his age of 19 in the sentencing.”

After the ruling, the defense said, “It’s regrettable that our arguments were not accepted. We will carefully decide on whether to file an appeal with the defendant.”

There have been notorious cases in which defendants who were juveniles at the time of their crimes received the death sentence.

In the 1999 murder of a mother and her child in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the 2010 stabbing of three people in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, both 18-year-old defendants were sentenced to death. Each involved the killing of two people.

In Endo’s case, the defense argued, “It is not that he does not reflect on what he had done but is incapable of doing so due mainly to inappropriate upbringing.”

The defense had sought to avoid the death penalty, claiming, “With proper education and treatment, he could be rehabilitated.”

Tomoyuki Mizuno, a former criminal judge and now a professor at Hosei University Law School, pointed out that “the defendant was 19 years old at the time of the crime and had misfortunes in his upbringing.”

However, he said that “the judges probably decided that the death penalty was unavoidable,” by emphasizing the brutality of the crime and the number of victims among nine factors of the “Nagayama Criteria,” a standard for applying capital punishment set by the Supreme Court in 1983.

(This article was written by Yusui Munekata and Norikazu Miyake.)

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