Nurse case highlights need for criminal trial reform.

(From International Herald Tribune (Herald Asahi))

Muscle-relaxant slaying Former male nurse Daisuke Mori was sentenced Tuesday to life imprisonment for the murder of an elderly patient and attempting to murder four others at a clinic in Sendai four years ago by injecting muscle relaxant into their intravenous drips

One of the victims, a sixth-grader primary schoolgirl at the time, remains in a coma

The Sendai District Court, noting that the criminal acts occurred over a 10-month period in 2000, said that of all the murders committed under pretense of providing medical care, this was the most heinous on record

The court rejected the defendant's claim that the allegations were pure fabrications dreamed up by investigators

During this high-profile trial, prosecutors were hard-pressed to build a convincing case against Mori because there was no solid evidence linking the accused directly to the criminal acts

Mori initially confessed to the crime during police questioning immediately after his arrest, but he then retracted his statement, insisting to the end that the allegations against him were baseless. Nobody actually saw Mori injecting muscle relaxant into IV drips. The health condition of patients changed suddenly for the worse, but that can happen in any hospital. It is not easy to prove a causal relationship between the deterioration in the health of his patients and the use of muscle relaxant