Prosecutors sent to the Yamaguchi Family Court on Monday a 17-year-old boy arrested on suspicion of beating his mother to death with a baseball bat, and asked the court to send him back for indictment.
The family court immediately decided to detain the boy, who turned 17 the same day, at a juvenile detention center for two weeks to examine his family environment. The detention can be extended by two more weeks.
Before the detention period expires, the court must decide whether to send him to a juvenile reformatory or return him to prosecutors so they can indict him as an adult.
Family courts have the authority to send minors aged 16 or older back to prosecutors for indictment to stand trial at a district court under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The teen is suspected of striking his 50-year-old mother several times in the head and other parts of her body with a metal bat at their apartment in Yamaguchi on July 29.
The boy was arrested July 31 after making an emergency call to police, telling them he had killed his mother. He said he had intended to run away but decided to confess instead, according to police.
He initially told investigators he killed his mother after they argued over her debts, but the prosecutors said Monday he killed her in a fit of anger after finding that she had made a few secret calls to a girl he wanted to go out with.
The boy had lived alone with his mother for five years after his father died, according to police.
Teachers at the junior high school he graduated from said he often quarreled with his mother over his future plans.
Since finishing junior high school he had worked as a newspaper delivery boy.