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Court rejects appeal of woman jailed for 15 years for killing husband with insulin overdose

7 Comments

The Osaka District Court on Friday rejected an appeal from a 51-year-old woman who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing her 51-year-old husband by giving him an insulin overdose in 2019.

According to the ruling, Shizuka Mukai, a former nurse, administered the insulin to her husband at their home in Osaka’s Nishinari Ward on April 24, 2019.

Mukai called 119 at around 7:10 p.m. that day and said her husband wouldn’t “wake up.” Her husband was rushed to a hospital. The following day, the hospital contacted police when the man failed to respond to treatment and fell into a coma. Doctors said his condition was due to hypoglycemia caused by an insulin overdose.

The man died in December 2020.

While Mukai’s husband had diabetes, he has not been prescribed insulin for over 11 years. Mukai said she acquired the insulin through an online site that helps people wanting to commit suicide.

In filing the appeal, Mukai’s lawyer said there was a strong possibility that the insulin was mistakenly administered. The court rejected this argument and upheld the original sentence handed down on Oct 5, 2021.

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A former nurse. Hard to know if it was accidental or at the request of the husband or on purpose. I know that

Mom nearly killed Dad when he had less than a month of life remaining by morphine overdoes for his pain management. He was terminal and in Hospice care. She got confused with everything happening in the house and just make the shot too big. Part of me wishes he'd died to avoid the remaining pain that was the rest of his life. Alas, mercy killing is illegal here. We need a law to allow a dignified end of life with sufficient checks when only physical pain remains for a person.

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Even the full term is still quite moderate for that intentional killing, even ordering from illegal sites with their other deadly intentions like suicide. If let out now or too early, she still could potentially work again as a ‘nurse’ when considering massive personnel shortage here or in other countries and then she might set the next overdose or wrong syringes into your venes. Would you really challenge that too?

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The defense lawyer is terribly naive if he thought the "accidental dose" could be a good argument. The woman is a nurse, the deceased had not needed insulin for decades. This is not a gun that discharged accidentally but a well planned attempt to get away with murder by someone that had even a professional responsibility not to use her knowledge in this way.

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virusrexToday  11:39 pm JST

The defense lawyer is terribly naive if he thought the "accidental dose" could be a good argument. 

The article does not refer to "accidental overdose" and no poster here does either. The article clearly reads:

*Mukai’s lawyer said there was a strong possibility that the insulin was *mistakenly administered. 

And it is easy to say now the defense lawyer was naive since the appeal was rejected. In fact, this type of defense is used successfully very often in these cases.

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The article does not refer to "accidental overdose" and no poster here does either. The article clearly reads:

Mukai’s lawyer said there was a strong possibility that the insulin was mistakenly administered. 

Saying that a professional nurse gave insulin without need, on a dose that can kill a man is saying that the argument is an accidental dose, because the only other possibility is to present it as an intentional overdose, which is obviously not a reason for an appeal.

It is an easy and straightforward interpretation, not all language has to be literal even if that is the only argument you can make up.

And no, being rejected as an argument do not make it automatically something naive, this is something that applies to this argument because of the obvious impossibility for anybody with even basic knowledge of the details of the case to even consider it possible.

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virusrexToday  05:46 am JST

Saying that a professional nurse gave insulin without need, on a dose that can kill a man is saying that the argument is an accidental dose, because the only other possibility is to present it as an intentional overdose, which is obviously not a reason for an appeal. 

It is an easy and straightforward interpretation, not all language has to be literal even if that is the only argument you can make up. 

And no, being rejected as an argument do not make it automatically something naive, this is something that applies to this argument because of the obvious impossibility for anybody with even basic knowledge of the details of the case to even consider it possible.

Wrong, because in the Japanese legal system the Japanese equivalents to "mistakenly" and "accidental" are not interchangeable.

Nothing to do with interpretation; there are words that have a legal meaning and words that don't, and certain terminology is acceptable by the courts whereas other words are not.

And the defense lawyer must present the best defense possible.

And because similar defenses like his have been successful, it makes ZERO sense to call him naive.

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Wrong, because in the Japanese legal system the Japanese equivalents to "mistakenly" and "accidental" are not interchangeable.

Since I am not using the Japanese equivalents nor making a legal argument that would still be irrelevant.

Also, trying to use either term in Japanese would be also terribly naive, because both excuses are impossible to believe realistically since the patient was not in insulin treatment and the killer was a licesed nurse, I is not realistic to think she could have used the drug mistakenly nor accidentally.

And because similar defenses like his have been successful, it makes ZERO sense to call him naive.

What example do you have about a licensed nurse getting away will giving a lethal dose of a drug that is not part of the treatment of the patient without facing consequences? I have not been able to find anything.

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