Tochigi patricide case

Born in Tochigi Prefecture, Aizawa was the first of six children. Her father was {{nihongo|Takeo Aizawa|相沢 武雄|Aizawa Takeo|extra=May 3, 1915 – October 5, 1968}} and her mother was {{nihongo|Rika Aizawa|相沢 リカ|Aizawa Rika}}.{{cite web|url=http://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~noboru/course/semicon-a/c04.pdf|title=Seminar Constitutional Law 2005|language=Japanese|work=Keio University SFC|publisher=Komazawa University|accessdate=August 28, 2011|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110827230738/http://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~noboru/course/semicon-a/c04.pdf|archivedate=August 27, 2011}} Takeo was an alcoholic and systematically raped his daughter from 1953, when she was fourteen years old, onwards. Rika fled to Hokkaidō soon after, leaving Chiyo behind. She returned several years later, attempting to stop their relationship. By then, Takeo was living with his daughter, treating her as if she were his wife. Chiyo became pregnant 11 times and had five daughters by her father, two of whom died in infancy. In 1967, she underwent sterilization after her sixth abortion.

In 1968, Chiyo fell in love with a 22-year-old man, and her father became angry. He confined her and said that he would kill her three children. On October 5, 1968, she strangled her father in Yaita, Tochigi Prefecture. Her neighbors had thought Chiyo was her father's wife until her arrest, and the Japanese police then determined that her three children were sired by her father. Because the family law in Japan forbids polygamy and intermarriage between close relatives but does not forbid inbreeding, a family register recorded Chiyo's children as her father's illegitimate children.

The penalty for parricide was the death penalty or life imprisonment under article 200 of the Criminal Code of Japan.{{cite web| script-title=ja:矢板市・尊属殺人事件| publisher=事件史探求| language=Japanese| url=http://gonta13.at.infoseek.co.jp/newpage473.htm| accessdate=December 27, 2007| url-status=dead| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219175050/http://gonta13.at.infoseek.co.jp/newpage473.htm| archivedate=December 19, 2007}} Justices typically accept mitigating circumstances in such incidents; Japanese laws at the time permitted two reductions in sentencing, each reduction half of the appropriate sentence, with life imprisonment reduced to a seven-year sentence when reduction is applicable. Still, the minimum sentence Aizawa would have received was three years and six months in prison, and the laws did not allow suspended sentences for terms longer than three years.

Her lawyer insisted that the murder was self-defense and that she had been insane because of the rapes. The Utsunomiya District Court considered article 200 unconstitutional and acquitted Aizawa because the crime originated via self-defense on May 29, 1969. However, the Tokyo High Court did not concur and sentenced her to three years and six months on May 12, 1970. In a final appeal, the Supreme Court of Japan accepted the argument that imposing a harsh penalty on Aizawa would violate the principle of human equality before the law found in the constitution.

The court ruled the article unconstitutional on April 4, 1973. Aizawa was found guilty of regular homicide and received a sentence of two years and six months in prison, suspended for three years. If the court had not annulled the precedents, she could not have received a suspended sentence. She was effectively acquitted, and she worked in Utsunomiya after her release.

On April 19, 1973, the Japanese Ministry of Justice announced that Japanese murderers who had killed their parents could be individually granted amnesty. Article 200 of the penal code was abolished in 1995.{{cite web|url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20010708a3.html|title=The Japanese Constitution gets a provocative look|publisher=The Japan Times|date=July 8, 2001|accessdate=October 15, 2010}}

• Child sexual abuse
• Judicial review
• Utthalum
• Cases of children imprisoned by relatives

• Hideo Tanaka and Malcolm D.H. Smith, The Japanese legal system: introductory cases and materials, 1976, University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo {{ISBN|0-86008-161-3}}
• Meryll Dean, Japanese Legal System, 2002, Cavendish Publishing, London {{ISBN|1-84314-322-4}}
• Tsukasa Sugiura, The scream that doesn't reach, 2019, Kindle, Japan Tokyo {{ASIN|B07QJ7J8QK}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07QJ7J8QK/|title=The scream that doesn't reach: Day when severe punishment penalty for parent killing disappeared}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/indices/title/qu82_abstract.html "Parricide, Equality and Proportionality: Japanese Courts' Attitudes Towards the Equality Principle as Reflected in Aizawa v Japan"] at Murdoch University
• [http://www.courts.go.jp/english/judgments/text/1973.04.04-1970-A-No. 1310.html 1970(A)No. 1310] at the Supreme Court of Japan
• {{cite web |url= http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~noboru/course/semicon05b/c04.pdf |title= Seminar Constitutional Law 2005 |language= ja }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} {{small|(55.0 KiB)}}
• {{in lang|ja}} [http://yabusaka.moo.jp/yaita.htm 矢板・実父殺し事件]

Category:Living people

Category:Incestual abuse

Category:Murder in Japan

Category:History of Tochigi Prefecture

Category:Patricides

Category:Japanese case law

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:1968 murders in Japan

Category:Child sexual abuse in Japan