On July 26, 2016, nineteen residents of a care facility for people with disabilities in Sagamihara, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture southwest of Tokyo, were killed, and twenty-six other people were injured. The facility was Tsukui Yamayuri-en. The man responsible, Satoshi Uematsu, was a former employee of the facility. He was 26 years old. The attack was described at the time of the verdict as the deadliest mass killing in Japan since the Second World War.
On March 16, 2020, the Yokohama District Court convicted him and sentenced him to death. He did not dispute that he had carried out the attack; his defense argued that he lacked criminal responsibility. The court found that he had full criminal responsibility and rejected that argument. His lawyers appealed on March 27, 2020, and on March 30 the appeal was withdrawn at his own instruction, so that the sentence became final on March 31 after a single trial. Since 2022 he has twice asked for a retrial and twice been refused, the second time in the summer of 2026. A third was reported on November 10, 2026.
The nineteen who died were residents of the facility, aged between 19 and 70. Most reports at the time and during the trial withheld their names, because the families asked that they not be made public. Prosecutors and the court referred to them in court by letters, as is the practice in Japan when a victim's identity is withheld.
The practice of anonymity was challenged by some of the bereaved before the trial. On January 8, 2020, the day the trial opened, the mother of one of the dead, a 19-year-old woman, released a written statement giving her daughter's first name, Miho, and objecting to the use of a letter in place of it. She wrote that her daughter was neither of the letters used in court but Miho. She had kept the name private until then out of fear of how it would be received.
Twenty-six people were injured. Twenty-four of them were residents, and two were members of the staff on duty.
Uematsu was 26 at the time of the offenses and 30 at the verdict. He had worked at the facility before the events and was no longer employed there in July 2016.
In February 2017 the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office indicted him on charges of killing 19 residents and attempting to kill or injure 24 others. The charges as they stood at trial numbered six offenses in all: murder, attempted murder, unlawful confinement, confinement causing injury, trespass on a structure, and an offense under the arms law. The murder counts covered the 19 residents who died, and the attempted murder counts the 24 residents who were injured. The confinement offenses concerned members of the staff, two of whom were injured.
The trial was held at the Yokohama District Court before a panel of professional and lay judges. It opened on January 8, 2020, nearly three and a half years after the offenses. The first day was interrupted by a recess, and his lawyer told the court that he had a psychiatric disorder that left him mentally incompetent. The defense sought an acquittal on the ground of insanity or, failing that, a reduced sentence because of diminished capacity. Prosecutors argued that he was fully able to bear criminal responsibility.
The public interest in the verdict was considerable. For the reading of the judgment on March 16, 2020, 1,603 people queued for ten seats in the public gallery, a number reduced by distancing measures introduced because of the coronavirus epidemic.
On February 17, 2020, the Yokohama prosecutors asked the court to impose the death penalty, describing the offenses as extremely cruel. The defense's position remained that he should not be convicted.
The court gave its judgment on March 16, 2020. It found that at the time of the offenses he had full criminal responsibility. It ruled that the delusions he had experienced shortly before the events were mild and did not influence the offenses, and it found that he had understood the situation accurately and acted flexibly in pursuit of his aim. The defense's argument for acquittal and, alternatively, for diminished capacity was rejected.
In sentencing, the chief judge said that the crime had been planned and that there was a strong intent to kill, and that the consequences were so grave that they could not be compared with other cases. The court found that there was no room for leniency. It imposed the sentence the prosecution had requested: death.
Uematsu had said before and after the verdict that he would not appeal whatever the sentence. His defense counsel nevertheless lodged an appeal on March 27, 2020, within the time allowed. On March 30, the last day on which an appeal could be made, the appeal was withdrawn at his instruction. The death sentence became final at midnight, taking effect on March 31, 2020. A death sentence that becomes final after a first-instance trial alone is rare in Japan.
On April 1, 2022, Uematsu applied to the Yokohama District Court, the court that had convicted him, for a retrial. The first request was rejected. In 2025 the Tokyo High Court declined to allow a retrial, and in October 2025 the Supreme Court finalized the rejection.
A second request was filed afterwards. The Yokohama District Court rejected it, a decision that became known on June 24, 2026. He filed an immediate appeal, and on August 7, 2026 the Tokyo High Court dismissed it and upheld the lower court's decision, finding that the new grounds were substantially the same as those in the first request. His lawyers said afterwards that they were considering a further request.
On November 10, 2026, it became known that he had filed a third request for a retrial with a court. His death sentence remains final.
Japan retains the death penalty, and the sentence in this case is the highest the criminal courts can impose. A sentence of death becomes final when the appeals have been exhausted or, as here, when the right to appeal has lapsed or been withdrawn. After that, the only judicial route open to a condemned person is a request for a retrial. Such a request is made to the court that convicted the person, here the Yokohama District Court; the person may lodge an immediate appeal to a high court against a rejection, and a special appeal to the Supreme Court against the high court's ruling. The sequence in this case follows that path: the Yokohama District Court, then the Tokyo High Court, then the Supreme Court in respect of the first request.
The trial was a lay-judge trial, in which citizens sit with professional judges, which is the form used in Japan for the most serious offenses. That the sentence could become final after the court of first instance alone is the point on which the case differs from most capital cases, where appeals to the high court and the Supreme Court run for years.
The verdict is final, and the court's findings on criminal responsibility were not overturned. His repeated requests for a retrial have been rejected at each level that has ruled; the third, reported on November 10, 2026, has not been decided.
July 26, 2016: 19 residents of Tsukui Yamayuri-en in Sagamihara are killed and 26 people injured.
February 2017: Indicted by the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office.
January 8, 2020: Trial opens at Yokohama District Court; a victim's mother makes her daughter's first name public.
February 17, 2020: Prosecutors seek the death penalty.
March 16, 2020: Verdict: death sentence; the court finds full criminal responsibility.
March 27, 2020: Defense counsel files an appeal.
March 30, 2020: The appeal is withdrawn.
March 31, 2020: The death sentence becomes final.
April 1, 2022: First request for a retrial filed at Yokohama District Court.
2025: Tokyo High Court declines a retrial; October 2025: Supreme Court finalizes the rejection.
June 24, 2026: Rejection of the second request by the Yokohama District Court becomes known.
August 7, 2026: Tokyo High Court dismisses the immediate appeal.
November 10, 2026: A third request for a retrial becomes known.