The Sendai High Court on Thursday rejected a former death-row inmate's demand that the state and Miyagi Prefecture pay a total of 143 million yen in compensation for falsely charging him with murdering a family of four in 1955.
Presiding Judge Keiji Kobayashi turned down the demand filed by Yukio Saito, 69, and his mother Hide, 92, from Miyagi Prefecture, saying the state and prefecture should not be held responsible for their actions even though they were "eventually found to have been mistaken in a retrial."
Saito was sentenced to death for murdering the family in Matsuyama Prefecture. His "guilt" was established in 1960 in a Supreme Court ruling.
However, he was found not guilty during a retrial at the Sendai District Court in 1984.