For many of you, this might be a small news story from Japan. In 1981, it was a big news story in LA when a Japanese couple was shot and robbed in a drive by with the wife remaining in a coma and dying in Japan 1 year later. It caused a small international incident with Miura attacking the police and advocating Japanese tourists not to visit LA.

The scandal first started when Miura was later arrested for attempted murder as his ex-lover came forward and said she had been offered money to attack Miura's wife with a hammer some 3 months before the shooting. On top of that, Miura suddenly came into a windfall with the insurance policies on his wife totaling some 1.4 million dollars.

Fast forward a bit. He was found guilty of accessory to attempted murder, and later found guilty of accessory to murder in regards to the shooting. He won on appeal, and finally was 'vindicated' in the Japanese Supreme Court' upheld acquittal decision in 2003. He also attacked the media a few times with the most recent incident coming in 2006 where he attended a human rights forum criticizing the media and how they attack 'victims'.

Fast forward some more to February of this year. Miura is picked up in Saipan, and arrested on a 1988 warrant issued in LA. The case doesn't violate the double jeopardy rule in the US or Japan as he was originally tried in Japan after a special investigation was led by police in both countries. In addition, a law passed in California says that it can try cases even if they were tried and acquitted in another country.

The LA police have admitted they really don't have any new evidence, though they still point to a major discrepency between the accounts of the witnesses to the shooting and Miura's account.

My question is, should he get a break? And why would anyone have married this loser (he remarried)?

But seriously, it does raise some concerns about how many times you need to prove your innocence .

If there's enough evidence for an indictment, have a trial, if there's enough evidence for a conviction, send him to prison.

The whole point of a trial is to decide the issue.
There is no double jeopardy problem, as he's never been tried in a US court, so if the LA prosecutor thinks he has a case, he should go forward with it.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

But you have to wonder when you apply the defintion of double jeopardy, does this mean you need to be tried in all places of jurisdiction (happened in the US, but victim and perp are both Japanese nationals)? So I am really wondering if this defintion of double jeopardy should be questioned (personally I think he's guilty, but I'm looking at this case from a legal perspective).

Within a given nation I would hope that once not guilty = always not guilty, for better or worse (and ignoring any civil vs criminal law issues). Between nations it should probably depend on the treaties between them. If Iran declares an accused terrorist not guilty, can we still try him?

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"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself especially, are in a state of shock and disbelief." - Alan Greenspan

I can understand your arguement, but this is not a case of a terrorist act, rather a suspected homicide of a spouse for insurance money. Japanese law doesn't cover acts of conspiracy, which is what a lot of the CA case relies on as they have just revealed a lot of circumstantial evidence agnist Mr. Miura.

Actually, in Japan they don't like to pursue cases that they can't get convictions on, thus supporting their high conviction rate (something like 98.5 % with cases with an arrest warrant issued). Now of course their cases solved rate would be a lot lower, something they have been taken to task for again recently in a recent sumo wrestler trainee death where the Japanese police orignally didn't want to do an autopsy and only did one when the family insisted on one.

Surprisingly Miura served time for his conviction on the attempted murder attempt (before the shooting), but in that case the prosecution had a witness testify that he had offered her money to kill his wife with a hammer.

Miura's current lawyer is trying to argue that Miura shouldn't be extradiated to LA because trying him again would be going aganist the principle of the double jeopardy rule. Not sure if he is going to win that arguement.