Sociology and Criminology-Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Mother who starved her Baby to Death: Is she Culpable of Murder or ofAnother Crime?

Nambu S

In the new criminal justice system in Japan, citizens serve as jurors, and media has predicted that   citizens may take a severe attitude toward a child abuse. In a recent fatal neglect case, the panel including citizens found the defendant to be murder and imposed apparently severe punishment than in prior procedure. This paper looks at similar two neglect cases tried in the prior system and considered how the neglect cases had been evaluated and charged in the prior system and will be in the new system in Japan. We obtained and reviewed the complete trial record of these cases by lawful means. The marked difference between two cases was whether the offenders had concretely foreseen the result of “the death of a child”. In spite of the same results caused by the mothers’ omission, their foresight of the occurrence of the results made differences in the charges and sentences for the offenders. Unlike the prior one, the panel of the new criminal procedure did not give greater importance to the offender’s foresight but to the severity and duration of the negligent situation when they convicted the defendant of murders.