KCAL news brief about Miura case.

Kazuyoshi Miura, age 61, arrived in the U. S. early this morning, landing at LAX on a flight from Honolulu. Miura is back in the U.S.A. to face charges that he conspired to have his wife murdered for insurance money as the two visited Los Angeles in 1981.

Miura was arrested in February while visiting Saipan. He fought extradition for months, but after an American judge removed the "murder" part of the murder and conspiracy charges against the Japanese businessman, Miura agreed to return to America. Los Angeles County judge Steven Van Sicklen ruled that putting Miura on trial for murder would amount to double jeopardy.

Miura and his wife were shot while they were in LA 27 years ago. He was injured, she was struck in the head. It took a year and returning to Japan, but Miura's wife finally died from her wound.

Prosecutors think Miura was motivated by the $750,000 in insurance money he eventually picked up after his wife's demise.

A Japanese court found Miura guilty 14 years ago, but the conviction was eventually overturned.

If Miura is convicted of the conspiracy charges against him, he could face anywhere from 25 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors in LA aren't letting go of the murder charge yet. They filed a brief yesterday seeking reinstatement, stating that Miura's acquittal under Japanese law might be irrelevant in the United States.

Miura will be arraigned next Tuesday.

My friend Sprocket (obviously, not her real name) is a self-confessed true crime junkie and frequent courtroom observer. Sprocket has paid close attention to the courtroom events in the Miura case. In August she observed a pretrial hearing where the prosecution and defense squared off over the issue of what constitutes criminal conspiracy under American law and the differences in how the Japanese handle the issue.

In a blog entry about the hearing, Sprocket wrote about a bit of a showdown between storied attorney Mark Geragos, working for Kazuyoshi Miura, and one of the prosecution's expert witnesses, law professor Mark D. West.

Do I really need to tell an avid true crime fan who Mark Geragos is? He has represented some of the highest profile defendants in recent true crime history: Winona Ryder, Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson, just to name a few.

Mark D. West teaches at the University of Michigan, where he founded the Japanese Law Studies Program ten years ago. Professor West is, as Sprocket noted, "fluent in written and spoken Japanese" and has taught at several schools in Japan. As preparation for the trial, Professor West read the Japanese court rulings in the original language.

West's role in the August hearing was to explain how the Japanese handle the legal issue of conspiracy. In that country, there is no such thing as a charge of conspiracy. The Japanese have only a legal theory of collusion as part of their laws regarding murder, but in Sprocket's words, "you cannot be convicted of a 'theory' in Japan.'

Professor West told the court that the Japanese court documents indicated that Miura was originally convicted of murder, attempted murder, and fraud.

West was cross-examined by Mark Geragos (who is disliked by many true crime aficionados, who tend to be prosecution-friendly). From Sprocket:

Professor West held his own under relentless cross examination by Mark Geragos. Professor West disagreed with the prosecution's translation of the Japanese court proceedings, where the English word "conspiracy" is used several times. One of the Japanese words that can have several meanings, especially when used in the context of law is "kyobo." West states that it was translated as "conspiracy, collusion, colludes." In his reading of the court documents, it was not always translated properly. Koybo does not have the same concept in the US, West said. In translation, it can mean collusion or plotting. But the word plotting is not a easy word to translate from Japanese to English. Translating koybo as "complicity" would be a stretch...

Mark West's explanations of these complex issues were clear -- there is no standalone charge of conspiracy under Japanese law. In essence, an American charge of conspiracy against Kazuyoshi Miura would not constitute double-jeopardy.

Professor Mark D. West's testimony may have been key to finally planting Kazuyoshi Miura's feet on American soil again.

This is perhaps more suited to a personal blog, but I have to admit I read Sprocket's account of the famed defense attorney named Mark attempting to badger the cool-headed law professor named Mark with a great deal of pleasure and perhaps something like fraternal pride.

I have known Mark West since 1984. I stood beside him through countless choral concerts, practiced music at his family's house and turned the ignition on his banana-yellow Chevy Citation when it wouldn't start properly prior to a schoolday concert on some wintry morning in 1985 or 1986, while he did something under the car's hood with a screwdriver. Mark was the student director of our select madrigal group during our senior year and perhaps one of the most interesting guys in our large Nashville-area high school. He was certainly one of the smartest people there -- Mark was one of our valedictorians. In the 85/86 yearbook's senior superlatives section -- this will embarrass him -- Mark West was one of the guys considered "most likely to succeed." I was one of the "most talented" seniors.

I still e-mail with Mark West and sang with him during a reunion of our high school choral groups in Nashville a couple of years ago. I asked him about this story (figuring of course he'd talk to an old high school buddy), but he told me he'd said "no to every conceivable inquiry," so he couldn't add anything to what the mainstream press -- or bloggers like Sprocket -- have already written.

I told him that was okay. I felt weird asking in the first place. When you first make a friend in high school, something inside you stays much more comfortable with e-mailing gross jokes back and forth during a slow work day than with discussing serious stuff like murder for hire.

[KTLA.com. See also -- Judge Van Sicklen's decision.]