Over the past three years, more than 90 percent of the rulings by the Sapporo High Court have been handed down on the first day of a trial, triggering criticism from lawyers who say the judges aren't looking into the cases carefully enough.
At the opening hearing of a murder trial in January, a judge at the high court dismissed a defendant's call for acquittal after 10 minutes. The defendant wasn't even asked a question.
The court's rulings were handed down on the same day as the first hearing around 60 to 70 percent of the time in 2012 and 2013. But after Judge Toru Takahashi was appointed chief of the criminal case division in 2014, the figure jumped to 91 percent. In 2015, it rose to about 95 percent before easing to 91 percent in 2016.