The defendant, aged 21, was charged with defrauding an elderly person in Okayama Prefecture of 1.5 million yen in cash and with possessing cannabis elsewhere in the same prefecture.[1] In May, the Okayama District Court sentenced him to 4 years and 6 months in prison and a 300,000-yen fine.[1] Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the failure to set a detention term was an error in the application of the law.[1]

It emerged on the 29th that the district court had imposed the fine without declaring the period of detention in a workhouse if the fine could not be paid in full.[1] On the 28th, the Okayama branch of the Hiroshima High Court vacated the first-instance judgment and issued a guilty judgment that set the workhouse detention period.[1]

Under the Criminal Code, a person who cannot fully pay a fine is detained in a workhouse, and the detention period must be declared when the fine is imposed.[1] 労役場留置, rendered here as workhouse detention, refers to that detention in a labour facility for non-payment of a fine.[1]