Judge orders psychiatric tests on U.S. sailor over taxi driver's murder

Friday 12th December, 06:21 AM JST

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12 Comments

mindovermatter at 08:33 AM JST - 12th December

This guy is still around...?

He confessed to everything.... In Japan that's the green light to put him away for life.... They sentenced that other scum bag within 3 months....

I don't know how he can reverse his plea at this point... This is Japan after all, human & civil rights need not apply....
soldave at 08:58 AM JST - 12th December

I think they are pondering over whether he was mentally impaired at the time, which could potentially lessen the sentence. And if he confessed to knowingly committing everything then surely he wouldn't be pleading not guilty.

Will be interesting to hear the findings of this. If not mentally impaired, he deserves a hell of a long sentence (life? Death?); if found to be mentally impaired then he needs some serious psychological help. Hopefully he would be able to go back to the States and receive it.
kjunluc2 at 09:06 AM JST - 12th December

He's a disgrace to the Navy. After he's found guilty I suspect the Navy will give him a dishonorable discharge. I doubt he'll ever see the U.S. again.
soldave at 09:47 AM JST - 12th December

kjunluc2 - very good point there. Forgot about that one.
TheguyNextdoor at 09:54 AM JST - 12th December

He is no longer apart of the military , he was a deserter. Once you desert you are done, if you attempt to return, you are done. I believe the military at this point has washed their hands of this character. He needs to be in prison for the rest of his life/the death sentence. Voices or not, he killed a man. Doesn't need to be sent to states for help, let him pay his time in the country he committed his crime.
VoXman at 10:01 AM JST - 12th December

Anyone looking at this situation from the beginning, including those of us who saw his Myspace webpage....know that this guy is guilty as SIN. He thought he was some Rapper thug who could do as he liked. And running with the Nigerian Dope mule-ing crowd in Tokyo didn't help either......

Don't believe the rap lyrics... they're hype too and the videos are full of posers.
FreeInJapan at 10:11 AM JST - 12th December

My hope is that they allow the psychologists from the base at least assist in the examinations, for the simple fact that I feel they will be a bit more scrutinizing. I have serious doubts that he was mentally impaired and would hate to see him get away with it because some less than stellar J-doc said he was.
CMEANDU26 at 11:49 AM JST - 12th December

Damn....maybe he is a little smarter than I thought. He is going to be monitored and hear the voices. They may not seek to kill him. What he doesn't want is to be around the real crazy people. He might get off though. We will see in a few months.
soldave at 01:51 PM JST - 12th December

TheguyNextdoor - in that case then, Kyodo News and JT shouldn't be reporting at all that he is related to the US armed forces. Any guesses whether the story will be changed to reflect this? I'll give you two guesses; you'll only need one.
Alphaape at 03:08 PM JST - 12th December

He is no longer apart of the military , he was a deserter. Once you desert you are done, if you attempt to return, you are done.

TheguyNextdoor - You are wrong in your comments. If he is a deserter, and return, you still fall under the military control. It doesn't matter how many years or where you are at. What they will do in most cases is bring you back, make you go through the process of a court martial, and depending on what you did for going AWOL, give you a fine or jail term. Just as in the case of Jenkins when he came back from North Korea.

He still is under the military jursidiction, and we are still watching the proceedings of this case. He is basically in the control of the Japanese authorities as per the SOFA. I am not sure but I believe that all of his pay and allowances have stopped, or are being held but he is still under military jurisdiction. If he is sentenced and sent to a Japanese jail, there will be a representative that goes out at least monthly to do a welfare check on him. If he is ever released, he will be released to US Navy, and then promptly sent back to the US. He still has to pay for his crime of being AWOL in the Navy, so I imagine a few years in a Federal Prison back in the states will be in store for him.

I am curious to see what the psychiatric results will be. We read of many cases here at JT that one would describe as "psycho" and I wonder will they lable this guy competent to stand trial in order to be able to give him the max sentence or give him a diagnoisis of "unbalanced" to give him a lesser sentence. My money is that he will be found sane.
BBLeo at 06:07 PM JST - 12th December

Psychiatrist can seat down together in a dark room with accused, and perhaps they could be both listening to voices from above. This Nigerian killer should hang. I wonder who pump into his head to the games with Japanese justice. If he has 'Legal Boston' lawyer, I could understand, but this instance someone did pump up the judge to order this testing. Is accused crazy or are we all instead? Sure I did suggest previously that accused requires ‘psycho.’
Seawhiz at 05:38 AM JST - 13th December

Man this guy is old news, they should just give this guy to rope and let him hang himself in a straight jacket. Alpha ape- The US Navy has wipe their hands of this guy. He is not consider to be US Navy Sailor anymore, the only things he is good for now is being an example for future servicemembers in Japan or any country. GuyNextDoor- I heard you and this guy were friend back in the day