JAPAN: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR KILLING 5 NEIGHBORS IN YAMAGUCHI LOSES FINAL APPEAL

July 12, 2019:

The Supreme Court on 11 July 2019 upheld a 2016 ruling by the Hiroshima High Court denying an appeal by a 69-year-old man sentenced to death for the murders of five people in the mountain hamlet of Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in July 2013.
In July 2015, the Yamaguchi District Court sentenced Kosei Homi to death for killing five of his neighbors in the remote community. Homi had pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and arson at his trial by reason of insanity.
The five victims were in their 70s and all had been battered with a wooden rod or stabbed to death.
The Yamaguchi court acknowledged that Homi suffered from a delusional disorder but ruled that he knew what he was doing when he committed the arson-murders.
The Supreme Court decision was handed down by the top court's No. 1 Petty Bench. The top court acknowledged that Homi was mentally competent to be held fully responsible for his conduct even though he had been diagnosed as suffering from a type of delusional disorder at the time of the crime, Kyodo News reported.