Last April, the Supreme Court reversed a Tokyo High Court decision that found Masahiro Nakura, a professor of medicine at the Self-Defense Forces University, guilty of being a chikan (groper) after he was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school girl on the Odakyu train line in 2006. A majority of the judges said they thought the girl's statement was "unreliable."
The media hailed the verdict as a victory for justice and common sense. Veteran journalist Soichiro Tahara brought Nakura on to TV Asahi's "Sunday Project" and extended his sympathies. The system was so infernal, Tahara said, that "even a distinguished professor" had to endure three trials (the original plus two appeals) and the presumed browbeating of police and prosecutors. Tahara's words brought tears to Nakura's eyes — and to the eyes of the show's female announcer as well.
However, not everyone was happy. A recent issue of Kinyobi ran several essays by women writers who think the judges were prejudiced. Nobuko Kamenaga starts off hers by saying that the "iron rule" of a criminal trial is that the benefit of the doubt should favor the suspect, but such a premise assumes that the suspect is the person on trial. Based on the judges' opinions, she concludes that it was the victim who was on trial.