I once wrote an article in this column with the headline ``How many people do I have to kill to get the death penalty?'' Around 18, during the trial of the Hikari City Incident in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in which a mother and daughter were murdered at the age of 1 years and 2000 month, if an adult killed three people, the death penalty was given; if two, it was 3/2, but even if one person was killed, the death penalty could still be given. The conclusion at the time was that we would get it.However,2017In a case in Kobe that killed five people and seriously injured two others, based on the opinion of a doctor who conducted a psychiatric evaluation, the defendant at the time was diagnosed with schizophrenia and said, ``If you kill a philosophical zombie, you can kill an acquaintance.'' At the first trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, saying that he was in a delusional state in which he believed that he could marry someone.moreover,In 2015, a "hikikomori" man stabbed five people to death, including neighbors, on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, and in 5, in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, he murdered six people. Judgment standards have been shaken significantly.In the Awaji Island case, the crime was said to have been caused by a "delusion" of being chased by someone, and in the Kumagaya case, a psychiatric evaluation showed that the defendant had schizophrenia at the time of the incident, which was a major reason why the death penalty was changed from the death penalty to life in prison. It has become.According to Article 2015 of the Penal Code, if a person cannot distinguish between good and bad, or if he or she can distinguish between good and bad, he or she cannot be punished unless he or she has the ability to act accordingly. A sentence is given to reduce the crime to the first degree.
In 2019, an attempted murder case occurred in Osaka in which a police officer on duty at a police box was stabbed with a knife and his handgun was stolen.The jury trial of the first instance determined that the crime was premeditated, having lured other police box workers with false reports of the incident, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.However, at the second trial, the defense argued that he suffered from schizophrenia based on the results of a psychiatric evaluation, resulting in a verdict of not guilty.The prosecutor gave up on appealing to the Supreme Court, and the verdict of not guilty was finalized.
The second one mentioned in the titleis a case in which a high school student was murdered in Kita Ward, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture in 2010, and in 2021, a suspect was arrested for the first time in 11 years (his real name has not been disclosed because the defendant was a 17-year-old boy at the time of the crime).During the interview with the doctor in charge of the psychiatric evaluation, the defendant claimed that he had ``audio hallucinations and delusions,'' which are characteristics of schizophrenia, but the doctor in charge said that he did not have any problems that prevented him from holding a conversation, and that he Because the patient improved without receiving treatment, the defendant's explanation was contradictory and pointed out that it was highly likely that the patient was ``faking an illness.''As a result, the trial court sentenced him to 18 years in prison.In juvenile cases, even a life sentence is actually a sentence of around 15 years, so a fixed-term sentence of 18 years is actually heavier than a life sentence.
In the past, killing three people was punishable by death, but in recent years there have been cases in which people are found not guilty even if they kill five people (triple murders), and cases where even five people are sentenced to life in prison. Whether or not someone gets the death penalty is not determined by the number of people killed. Also,The police box attack case, which had been found guilty in the first trial, was found not guilty in the second trial due to schizophrenia, and was found not guilty due to lack of responsibility. became.Psychiatric evaluation not only reduces sentences, but also has the effect of turning guilt into innocence, and sometimes repels the defendant's false allegations.modernResults of psychiatric evaluation in societyis given so much importance.
On the other hand, as Ide (2014) and Iwanami (2017) point out, the 1997 serial child murder case in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, and the 2001 Ikeda Elementary School Incident in Osaka Prefecture, where the psychiatric evaluations were used to diagnose and From the point of view of the Statistics Manual (DSM-5), it must be said that it is inadequate or inappropriate.Even if you are familiar with the general public's mental illness, in a crime situation where you cannot be assured that the defendant is telling the truth, it may be inevitable that the defendant's capacity to take responsibility will be greatly overlooked..
Citation
Sohei Ide (2014): The Challenge of Asperger's Syndrome Kobunsha Shinsho
Akira Iwanami (2017): Reconsidering why psychiatric evaluation is wrong.
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Written by Makoto Nakayama, Department of Criminal Psychology, Faculty of Psychology
