Guilty on Mercy Killing

Kyoto District Court sentenced eighteen years in prison to a medical doctor who was indicted with charge of commissioned murder as killing a woman with heavy muscle disease. While the defendant argued that he was asked a mercy killing by the woman, the court found that the defendant disregarded value of human life too much. There was a painful situation for the patients and their families in the background.

According to the sentence, the defendant killed a woman, who had muscle twitching illness called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), by sending drug through the device of gastrostomy in her room in Kyoto in November 2019. The defendant had accumulated dialogues about euthanasia with the woman through social networking service and argued that killing her was what she wanted, approving the facts of indictment.

 

Quoting Article 13 of Constitution of Japan, which assures people’s dignity as individual, lawyers of the defendant argued that the defendant was innocent, because the woman had a right of self-determination and the government of Japan would violate that right, if it punishes the defendant with criminal code, forcing her to live an unwanted life.

 

The court admitted that there are patients who suffer from a disease, for which current medical treatment does not work, are desperate with fear of death and cannot kill oneself losing self-control of the body. It raised four examples which would not be applied to commissioned murder: deliberated decision with every treatment and examination and consultation with other medical doctors, utmost informing to the patient and reconfirmation of patient’s will with opinions of the family, using painless method, and recording the process for later verification.

 

Having said that, the court dismissed the argument of the defendant and decided to apply commissioned murder to him. The court raised the points that the defendant was not main doctor of her, the defendant only had dialogue through social networking service and had not diagnosed for her, he killed her within fifteen minutes after he met her for the first time, and he did not informed her main doctor or her family, and did not leave any record.

 

On the right written in Article 13, the court determined that the provision was based on the situation in which the individual is alive. “It cannot be drawn an interpretation from the provision that a person has a right to ask someone to kill oneself,” said the sentence.

 

ALS is a difficult disease of weakening muscle of whole body. The patient can hardly swallow foods and cannot bathe without someone’s help. The family of patient would be required hard work, sometimes causing patient’s despair. It is important for the government to take further measures for patients and families, as long as mercy killing is not broadly accepted in the society.