MIYAZAKI (Kyodo) A former judge was given a suspended sentence Tuesday for groping a woman while she slept next to him on an express bus in February when he was still a judge.
Taizo Ichiki, 52, was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for five years. "Public trust in judges was severely damaged and the dignity of the judiciary was conspicuously lost" through his crime, the Miyazaki District Court ruled.
Ichiki, a judge at the Fukuoka High Court's Miyazaki Branch, groped the female college student around 9 p.m. Feb. 8 while she was asleep on a bus traveling from Fukuoka to Miyazaki, the court said.
"He committed the crime despite knowing well as a judge in charge of criminal trials the wrongfulness of sexual crimes and the suffering of victims and being strongly required to comply with the law and have a high ethical sense," presiding Judge Masayoshi Takahara said.
Ichiki sought leniency, saying he was exhausted mentally and physically due to overwork. Takahara dismissed the plea, saying such reasons "cannot justify the crime."
Wearing a dark gray suit, Ichiki was admonished by Takahara for becoming involved in a "despicable case of indecency" as a sitting judge.
After the court adjourned, Ichiki issued a statement saying, "I keenly feel social responsibility for betraying the public trust in the judiciary and judges."
Ichiki's lawyers said he has no plans to appeal. Prosecutors had demanded a two-year prison term without suspension.
In March, after his arrest and indictment, the Supreme Court asked a parliamentary judges indictment committee to file a request for an impeachment trial so Ichiki could be dismissed, but the panel ran out of time and his term as a judge expired in April.
