A test case for the nascent lay judge system got under way Friday at the Tokyo District Court as a celebrity defendant already crucified in the public realm now faces citizen judges, raising questions of whether they can render a judgment free of media influence.

Actor Manabu Oshio pleaded not guilty to giving the synthetic drug MDMA to a woman who died in August 2009 while they were in a Tokyo apartment, and to failing to save her life by not calling an ambulance immediately after she fell critically ill from an overdose.

It is the first high-profile case in which a celebrity is being tried by a combination of lay and professional judges since the new criminal trial system began in August 2009.