US Edition
Man Acquitted in Retrial over 1986 Murder of School Girl
JAPAN, JUL 18 – The Kanazawa High Court cited unreliable witness testimony and suspected police influence in acquitting Maekawa, who served seven years for the 1986 murder of a Fukui schoolgirl.
- The Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court acquitted Shoshi Maekawa on July 18, 2025, at the end of his retrial, citing doubts about witness credibility.
- Last October, the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court ordered a retrial after a credibility review of witness testimony prompted the case to restart in March.
- During the first hearing last March, Judge Keisuke Masuda said eyewitness accounts `cannot be trusted because there is a possibility of investigative authorities having unfairly led witnesses to testify` after a hearing focused on blood-stained clothing sightings.
- Such acquittals are rare—since World War II only 21 individuals in 19 cases have been cleared, and Maekawa, now 60, had maintained his innocence since his 1987 arrest.
- His case has long involved reversals—acquitted in 1990 then found guilty in a 1995 appeal, and a 2011 retrial was canceled after a prosecution challenge—underscoring a prolonged legal saga.
12 Articles
12 Articles
A Japanese court has acquitted a man convicted of the murder of a teenage girl in 1986 this Friday, for which he has spent seven years in prison, after the repetition of the trial after considering that the testimony of one of the witnesses lacked credibility. The Nagoya Supreme Court ordered the repetition of the trial by determining that the statement of one of the persons appearing in the Shoshi Maekawa trial was not credible, without the pro…
In Japan, 60-year-old Shoji Maekawa has been acquitted, almost 40 years after the murder of a high school student in Fukui. On March 19, 1986, the 15-year-old victim was stabbed to death at home during the night. Maekawa was arrested a year later. He has always denied involvement in the crime. The case became one of the most notorious examples of what human rights organizations call the "hostage system" of Japanese criminal law. Maekawa was wron…
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