A man wrongly convicted of two rape cases in 2002 who spent years in prison was cleared in a retrial Wednesday, a rare case in which both the state and defense sought a not-guilty verdict.
The false conviction of Hiroshi Yanagihara, 40, originated from a common police tactic to extract confessions — forcing suspects to spill the beans behind closed doors.
The retrial, however, did not reveal the details of how investigators forced Yanagihara to confess. Instead, only an apology was offered in court.