On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:55:15 -0400, Kevin Wayne Williams
<kww.nihongo@verizon.nut> brought down from the Mount tablets
inscribed:

>Michael Cash wrote:
>
>> One of the things about murder cases in Japan which struck me as odd
>> was how a murdered corpse going undiscovered affects the statute of
>> limitations on prosecuting the murderer. 
>> 
>> You ain't dead, you see, until a doctor says you're dead. And it
>> doesn't matter if he says it 30 seconds after you give up the ghost or
>> 30 years after the last bit of flesh has rotted off your skeleton. 
>> 
>> The statute of limitations is 15 years after the murder. You're not
>> murdered until you're dead. And you're not dead until you're examined.
>> And you're not examined until you're found. There have been people
>> prosecuted for and convicted of murder in Japan who, because they
>> didn't know this, thought they had long ago safely beaten the rap.
>
>So your best bet is to dump the victim's body in a doctor's waiting room
>in order to start the statute of limitations clock ticking?

Sounds logical to me.

I first became aware of this while reading a book written by a
Japanese coroner. The incident he used to relate the info was (if I
remember correctly) one of a set of skeletal remains found in a remote
mountainous area. The date of death on the death certificate was the
date of discovery/examination.

Things like this can also complicate things like settling up estates
and life insurance, even without there being any foul play involved.

Dr. Masahiko Ueno, former Tokyo head coroner, told about working a big
hotel fire several years ago. I forget the name of the hotel at the
moment. Anyway, all the members of a particular family who were
staying there died of smoke inhalation. On their death certificates,
he recorded the same time of death for each of them. He soon found
himself hosting delegations of the bereaved who pushed for him to
shift the time. The husband's family wanted his time to be later than
the wife's time, and vice versa. This, of course, would be the
deciding factor in which set of relatives would inherit the estate of
the now-gone bunch who had expired in the tragedy.





--

Michael Cash

"I am sorry, Mr. Cash, but we are unable to accept your rap sheet in lieu of
a high school transcript."

                                Dr. Howard Sprague
                                Dean of Admissions
                                Mount Pilot College