Japanese Businessman Faces US Trial in Alleged Conspiracy to Murder Wife
A Japanese businessman who is fighting a court battle on two fronts to avoid being tried on charges related to the 1981 murder of his wife has seemingly lost another round.
Although Kazuyoshi Miura “was cleared of his wife’s killing by a court in Japan in 1998 following a marathon legal saga,” recounts Agence France-Presse, “California Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen found that because Miura was never charged or tried with conspiracy to commit murder in Japan, he could be prosecuted on that charge in the United States.”
The ruling reactivates a California warrant for the arrest of the 61-year-old former company president, who is suspected of having participated in a plot to have his wife shot and killed in Los Angeles, explains the Yomiuri Shimbun. Miura is currently being held in Saipan, a U.S. territory, where he is fighting a ruling by the district court of the U.S. Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands that he can be extradicted to Los Angeles.
Upping the ante, the CNMI Supreme Court earlier last week affirmed the district court decision ordering Miura’s extradiction to California, reports the Saipan Tribune.
Lawyers for both sides proclaimed victory over Friday’s ruling in Los Angeles, which also determined that Miura cannot be tried for murder because of double jeopardy, according to AFP, a French news agency. (He was previously convicted of the murder in Japan, but that conviction was overturned, reports the Associated Press.)
However, his sentence for conspiracy to murder, if Miura is tried and convicted, could be the same as the sentence for first-degree murder: 25 years to life in prison, reports AP.
The U.S. news agency paints a word picture of defense attorney Mark Geragos explaining the judge’s ruling Friday to a Japanese reporters clustered outside the Los Angeles courtroom: “The American expression is the judge cut the baby in half,” Geragos told them.
Dubbed the “Japanese O.J. Simpson,” Miura was also shot in the leg in downtown Los Angeles at the same time his 28-year-old wife, Kazumi, was shot in the head. He said at the time that the two were attacked by robbers, AFP writes.
He is accused of having been motivated, at least in part, by the prospect of collecting on his wife’s hefty life insurance.
Additional coverage:
Saipan Tribune: “Miura’s lawyer: The war is far from over”
Saipan Tribune: “Famed photojournalist here for Miura coverage”
