Six lay judges — three men and three women — and three professional judges of the Saitama District Court on April 13 sentenced Ms. Kanae Kijima to death for murdering three of her lovers by burning coal briquettes (rentan) in heaters to cause carbon monoxide poisoning.
Since the high-profile trial lacked confessions and concrete evidence linking the 37-year-old woman to the murders, the lay judges served 100 days on the case — the longest period since the lay judge system was introduced in 2009. The ruling was the 14th death sentence, and the first given to a women, in a lay judge trial.
The trial has shown that citizens need to be prepared to fulfill the heavy responsibility that the lay judge system imposes on them. Each citizen needs to remember that by serving as a lay judge, he or she participates in building a society based on the rule of law.