Reflecting a growing debate on the reporting of juvenile crimes, the nation's media were split on Friday over whether to name a man who lost an appeal against a death sentence for a 2010 double murder.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld lower court rulings that ordered Yutaro Chiba to be hanged.
Chiba was 18 years old and a minor when he killed two women in Miyagi Prefecture, in the first case of capital punishment served for a juvenile crime under Japan's lay judge trial system. It was the seventh time a former minor has received a finalized death sentence since 1983, when the current sentencing policy was adopted.