A former assistant nurse convicted of murdering a patient in 2003 was set to be exonerated Monday after prosecutors chose not to contest new evidence presented by her defense team during the first hearing of her retrial.
Mika Nishiyama, 40, was found guilty in 2005 of killing a 72-year-old man by removing his respirator at a hospital in Shiga Prefecture, western Japan.
But at the retrial hearing at the Otsu District Court, prosecutors did not contest new defense-submitted evidence including a doctor's opinion that the patient died of natural causes.