The Tokyo High Court overturned a lower court-imposed life prison term Monday and sentenced a convicted killer and rapist to death for murdering a 44-year-old woman he had raped seven years earlier. Takashi Mochida, 57, a former construction worker, was found guilty of murdering the woman in 1997, two months after being released from prison for raping her. He said he murdered her for ignoring his warning not to report the rape. Monday's ruling follows recent trends in which the death penalty is handed down to those who repeat vicious crimes, even if there is only one victim. In a case in 1983, a Supreme Court ruling cited standards for delivering the death penalty, saying the ultimate punishment could be handed down if the defendant's criminal responsibility was grave. The top court also said the number of victims should be considered when imposing the death sentence. But in December last year, the Supreme Court rejected a lower court ruling that sentenced a 46-year-old man to life in prison for killing a Hiroshima woman, 87, in 1992 and sent the case back to the high court. With this decision, the man is likely to be sentenced to death. Although there was only one victim in this case, the top court regarded the defendant's criminal responsibility as grave since he committed the killing while on parole for another murder case. In handing down Monday's decision, Judge Mutsuo Nitta said that although the number of victims killed in a case is an important element when considering sentencing, there are cases when the death penalty is unavoidable. "The defendant's motive in the killing is unreasonable and selfish, and there is no fault on the victim," Nitta said. Nitta pointed out that although the defendant apologized to the victim, he did not feel real remorse for what he had done. During past hearings, Mochida said he would not have killed the woman if she had apologized for reporting the rape to police. "I believe there were faults in her, too," he said. Mochida had just finished serving a seven-year sentence for raping the woman when he waited outside her dwelling until she returned from her job at Japan Tobacco Inc. in April 1997. Before the rape, he had served a 10-year term for homicide. Mochida plunged a kitchen knife into the woman's chest when she arrived at the entrance of her housing complex in Koto Ward. The defendant killed the woman because she reported the rape to police, the court said. The lower court sentenced Mochida to life in prison last May, saying the court should take into consideration that Mochida did not commit the crime for any monetary gain.
