The Japan Times reports the appellate acquittal of a Kagoshima man for a 2012 rape, based on new DNA tests. The presiding judge criticized the failure of the police crime lab to report a DNA exclusion at the time of the conviction. “The possibility cannot be ruled out that (the police decided to say that an) analysis was impossible because a different person’s DNA was detected, reflecting investigators’ intentions.” And – “It can be suspected they intended to disclose the results only in the case that the outcome turned out to be favorable for them.” The deputy chief prosecutor of the Fukuoka High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office called this appellate ruling “deplorable.”
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