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The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a 34-year-old man who escaped from a police station in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture, where he had been arrested for rape, robbery and other crimes.
Chief Justice Kochi Kusano of the Supreme Court’s Second Petty Bench rejected a final appeal by Junya Hida who was sentenced to 17 years in prison in July 2020. Hida was in custody at Tondabayashi Police Station on the night of Aug 12, 2018, after being arrested for robbery and assault. He managed to flee the police station by breaking an acrylic plate in the visiting room and removing it from its metal frame. He left from an unlocked door on the lawyer's side of the partition.
Afterward, Hida was on the run for nearly a month and a half. He traveled across four prefectures ― Osaka, Kagawa, Aichi and Yamaguchi ― stealing bicycles and food along the way. He was arrested on Sept 29 while trying to steal rice cakes in Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture.
Hida was indicted for 21 crimes, including rape and robbery. The Sakai Branch of the the Osaka District Court tried 18 of the offenses, and Hida was found guilty on 17 counts. On July 3, a lay judge trial found him guilty of three additional charges, and he was handed a 17-year prison term.
© Japan Today
5 Comments
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Addfwyn
Guitly on 17 counts, at least one being rape, and the sentencing is only 17 years? That is after the escape charges as well. I somehow still managed to be surprised by how light the punishment here can be for rape.
snowymountainhell
Looked innocent enough that his cycling companion had no clue he was traveling with a sociopath:
Oct 1, 2018 - https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181001/p2a/00m/0na/014000c -
snowymountainhell
Good to see Junya Hida will now stay behind bars and bullet-proof glass again, as opposed to just plexiglass:
And that folks was “pre-Covid” days in 2018. Hopefully, the jailers have cinched up their security breaches.
shogun36
They should also arrest every police officer in that station that day for allowing him to escape, the incompetence.
They should also arrest the chief justice for only giving him 17 years, when he clearly deserves at least 70 years for the amount of crimes he's done.
I don't know which team to root for here. The criminal getting away with all kinds of illegal activity or the useless cops that can't even bring justice to all of this nonsense.
KuroTokage
AddfwynToday 04:49 pm JST
Escape charges can only apply for people who are sentenced to confinement by a court of justice. They do not apply to people who are in custody.
Even in the case the person would have escaped from prison, one needs to distinguish between 単純逃走罪and 加重逃走罪, the first one carries a maximal penalty of one year (in reality it is in the range of 2-3 months).