Tochigi patricide case
Chiyo Aizawa | |
|---|---|
| Children | three daughters (two other daughters died young) |
| Criminal charge | Murder (Supreme Court denied the guilt of patricide) |
| Penalty | 2 years 6 months in prison and 3 years suspended sentence |
Chiyo Aizawa (相沢 チヨ[1], Aizawa Chiyo, born January 31, 1939) was a Japanese woman who murdered her own father. Her case is famous in Japan because it led to a change in Japanese criminal law.
On October 5, 1968, she murdered her father in Yaita, Tochigi Prefecture.[2] The Japanese police, however, determined that her three children were her father's children.[1] Indeed, those around her had thought she was her father's wife until the arrest. Because the Japanese law forbids endogamy but doesn't forbid incest, his act was recorded on a family register.
Her father was Takeo Aizawa (相沢 武雄, Aizawa Takeo) and her mother was Rika Aizawa (相沢 リカ, Aizawa Rika). Her father suffered from alcoholism. He had had sexual intercourse with his daughter since 1953. Her mother escaped from him soon after, leaving her. She took sterilization after her sixth induced abortion. In 1968, he confined her and said that he would kill her three children. She finally murdered him.
The penalty for parricide was death penalty or life imprisonment under the article 200 of penal code.[2] Justices had announced mitigating circumstances in practice; still, the penalty was heavy. The district court sentenced her to a suspended sentence, insisting that the article 200 of penal code was unconstitutional, but high court didn't admit that. The defense of her made a final appeal.
Many argued imposing a stiff penalty on Aizawa would violate the principle of human equality found in the constitution and the Japanese supreme court agreed in a ruling on April 4, 1973. Aizawa received a sentence of a 2 years 6 months in prison and 3 years suspended sentence, which is much more lenient than any sentence she could have been given without the decision of the supreme court. She was effectively acquitted, and she worked in Utsunomiya.
On April 14, 1973, the many murderers who killed their parents were granted amnesties by the Japanese Ministry of Justice following this judgment. Nobody had been sentenced for guilty of parricide since that, and the article 200 of penal code was abolished in 1995.
See also
References
- ^ a b "栃木実父殺し事件" (in Japanese). 無限回廊. Retrieved 2007-12-27.
- ^ a b "矢板市・尊属殺人事件" (in Japanese). 事件史探求. Retrieved 2007-12-27.