The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a former death row inmate who was demanding 143 million yen in compensation from the government for imprisoning him for murders for which he was later acquitted.
The top court's first petty bench threw out the appeal filed by Yukio Saito, 70, and his mother Hide, 94, who were demanding that investigative authorities and the judiciary acknowledge their responsibility in finding Saito initially guilty of murdering a family of four in Miyagi Prefecture in 1955.
In rejecting the appeal, the Supreme Court said it agreed with a decision made last year by the Sendai High Court, which rejected the plaintiffs' demand for damages. The case is the only compensation suit to have been filed by a death-row inmate who was found not guilty in a retrial.