May 27 10:17 AM US/Eastern
NAHA, Japan, May 27 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Naha District Court on Thursday sentenced a 19-year-old U.S. Marine in Okinawa Prefecture to an indeterminate sentence of between three and four years in prison for injuring a taxi driver and robbing him of cash last year in the prefecture.
The ruling was given in what is believed to be the first lay judge trial of a U.S. serviceman since the system began in Japan last May, and at a time when problems concerning the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in the prefecture have been extensively covered in the media.
But lay judges who participated in the trial said they did not let their feelings about U.S. forces affect them in reaching their decision in this case.
"While I do not have a good impression of the U.S. forces due to the base issues (in Okinawa), I was not swayed by my emotions as an Okinawa resident in the deliberations," said one of the six lay judges at a press conference following the ruling.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of between four and six years in prison for the serviceman from the U.S. Marines' Makiminato Service Area in Urasoe.
A female lay judge in her 40s, who teaches at an elementary school close to a U.S. base, said she personally wishes there were "no bases around" after seeing children suffer from the noise and the smell of jet fuel, but separated the issue of the defendant from the base issue.
Another from Kadena, one of the Okinawan towns hosting a major U.S. base, said she was worried that people might think the judges gave him an unsuspended sentence because of the base problems, while Hiroto Higa, 25, who also took part in the trial as a lay judge said he hoped it would "serve as a deterrence" to crime involving U.S. servicemen.
The serviceman, whose name is being withheld because he is a minor, robbed a taxi driver of 21,000 yen and $100 after pointing a knife at his neck and injuring him on Aug. 1 last year, according to the ruling.
The court took into account the danger of the Marine, who has been trained for combat, using the knife in the process of the robbery.
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