Local gov't ordered to pay damages to acquitted ex-assistant nurse
Mika Nishiyama, 45, spent 12 years in prison after she was convicted in 2005 of killing the male patient at a hospital in Shiga Prefecture by removing a ventilator tube. The Otsu District Court dismissed her compensation claim against the central government.
The court found the investigation by prefectural police to be illegal, saying she was coerced into making a false confession. It also said police broke the law by withholding evidence suggesting the patient may have died of natural causes.
Nishiyama filed the damages suit in 2020, seeking about 55 million yen from the state and prefecture over what she said was a forced confession and the police's concealment of evidence.
Nishiyama argued that the indictment was invalid because prosecutors overlooked the police's illegal investigation, but the court dismissed the claim.
"I will keep on fighting until the end," she said after Thursday's ruling, adding that she intends to appeal it because the responsibility of the central government was not acknowledged.
In delivering the ruling, Presiding Judge Sosuke Ikeda said the investigation exceeded the bounds of social norms and that the failure to submit evidence to prosecutors had deprived her of a fair trial.
However, the court ruled that it was reasonable for prosecutors to indict her based on the information available at the time, including her confession.
In March 2020, Nishiyama was acquitted in a retrial in which the district court found it highly likely the patient had died of natural causes. The court also said her statements during the investigation were unreliable and that she may have been manipulated by an investigator.
According to her complaint, police coerced Nishiyama, who has a mild intellectual disability, into making false statements by exploiting her submissive nature and romantic feelings toward the investigator.
It also asserted the police did not disclose a document suggesting the patient had died of suffocation due to phlegm blockage.
The central and local governments had both urged the court to dismiss the claim, with the prefecture denying that police had intentionally withheld evidence or induced Nishiyama to make false statements, while the state argued the indictment was not unreasonable.
© KYODO
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