You stink, now off to jail you go for two years.
KYOTO--The distinctive body odor of a 21-year-old Maritime Self-Defense Force member was his undoing in a case of sexual molestation.Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable as most any prosecutor will tell you. Have ten witnesses to a crime, you may well get 10 descriptions. That's just based on a person using their sight. How reliable can a person's smell be? Would this ever happen in a US court.The victim told the district court here that she hardly saw the face of the man when he molested her, but could recognize him from his musky smell, which she likened to that of the "inside of a boxing glove."
The court ruled Tuesday that her testimony was credible and sentenced Taku Uemura to two years imprisonment, suspended for four years.
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The incident occurred near the woman's apartment in Uji in the prefecture last June.
Uemura's strong body odor was about the only lead police had in the case.
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Uemura apparently was so confident he would not get caught that he approached the woman later with his face clearly visible and struck up a conversation with her.
She immediately caught a whiff of his body odor and realized he was the man who had groped her earlier.
Presiding Judge Atsushi Miwa ruled the woman's recollection of the event, coupled with her statements about Uemura's body smell, conclusively proved that the MSDF member was the perpetrator.
"It was a pretty strong and extremely distinctive odor," the judge said.
I hope the victim was right in their identification, otherwise a innocent man went to jail for bad body odor.
Hat tip- Japundit
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Comments (3)
Smells can be very distinct... (Below threshold)1. Posted by SPQR | March 29, 2008 2:36 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Smells can be very distinct, and interestingly the human mind is good about recollecting smells. Such testimony is no less reliable than testimony based on other senses.
1. Posted by SPQR | March 29, 2008 2:36 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 29, 2008 14:36
2. Posted by Knightbrigade | March 29, 2008 5:12 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Oh well.....if he is innocent, I have only TWO words.........
RIGHT GUARD.
2. Posted by Knightbrigade | March 29, 2008 5:12 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 29, 2008 17:12
3. Posted by Mitchell | March 30, 2008 11:04 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
There are old cases here in NC that allow evidence of bloodhound's tracking to a particular person (the defendant) as being probative of identification of the perp. It is an identifying factor, like the shape of a face, height/weight, when the odor is this distinctive.
It's some evidence, but not all the evidence. Sounds like the court viewed it in context. Well done, I say.
3. Posted by Mitchell | March 30, 2008 11:04 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 30, 2008 11:04