The Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for a 24-year-old man convicted of killing his wife, baby and mother-in-law in the city of Miyazaki in March 2010.
Siding with the lay-judge trial decision handed down by the Miyazaki District Court in 2010, presiding Judge Takumi Enomoto said the defendant, Akihiro Okumoto, committed "cold-blooded and atrocious crimes" because of his "self-indulgent and self-centered motives."
It is the second case in which capital punishment in a lay-judge trial has been appealed, and the second in which the sentence has been upheld.