Court approves harsher charge for fatal 2021 car crash

ILO—A court ruled Nov. 28 that a man who caused a fatal crash while driving 134 kilometers per hour over the speed limit was guilty of dangerous driving and sentenced him to eight years in prison.

The trial by lay judges at the Oita District Court was held to replace the previous indictment against the 23-year-old suspect.

The Oita District Prosecutor’s Office initially charged the man with negligent driving resulting in death, which carries a maximum legal penalty of seven years in prison.

However, the court found that the defendant was guilty of the more serious charge of dangerous driving.

According to the original indictment, the man, then 19 years old, was traveling at 194 km/h when he entered a prefectural highway intersection around 11:00 p.m. on February 9, 2021.

The speed limit on that stretch of road was 60 kilometers per hour.

The man’s vehicle collided with a passenger car driven by Ken Koyanagi, 50, who was turning right from the oncoming lane. Koyanagi died of hemorrhagic shock due to physical trauma and blood loss.

Following the careless driving charge, Koyanagi’s grieving family and others submitted more than 28,000 signatures demanding the charge be changed to dangerous driving resulting in death, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

At the trial, the prosecution, seeking a 12-year sentence, said the defendant was driving “at a high speed, making it difficult to control the trajectory of the vehicle.”

This is classified as a type of dangerous driving.

“A slight error in steering or braking can cause the vehicle to leave the road and cause an accident” at that speed, prosecutors said.

The defense, on the other hand, said that the accident scene was a flat, paved straight line, and that “the defendant was able to drive in a straight line and did not deviate from the course of the road.”

The defense argued that the accident was not caused by mishandling of the steering wheel or brakes at 194 kilometers per hour. Therefore, the defense said, the applicable charge should be negligent driving resulting in death, not dangerous driving.

The prosecution had also claimed that the driver was “approaching with the intent to obstruct at a speed that would cause serious danger”, another type of dangerous driving.

The defense responded that this driving classification is intended to “punish distracted driving, such as cutting others off or forcing them to stop,” and that the defendant “had no intention of doing so.”