The case of Navy officer sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter in Japan has thrown into question the legal agreement that governs when the Japanese government has the power to prosecute American service members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That status of forces agreement<\/a> is now under scrutiny from Congress, as the case of incarcerated Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis<\/a> has made national headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current agreement allows Japan and the U.S. to divvy up investigating and prosecuting U.S. troops who are suspected of committing off-base crimes in cases where the service member has violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Japanese law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, the governor of Okinawa prefecture, which hosts 50,000 U.S. troops, believes the Japanese justice system deserves to take the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have been asking, or requesting, to amend the status of forces agreement to give the primary right to investigate to the Japanese side, when incidents or accidents takes place in Okinawa or in Japan, by amending the status of forces agreement,\u201d Gov. Denny Tamaki, through an interpreter, said during a Defense Writers Group event on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current agreement allows the military justice system the right of first refusal <\/b>for investigating and prosecuting U.S. troops who are suspected of committing off-base crimes in cases where the service member has violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Japanese law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. government ceded its jurisdiction to Japan in Alkonis\u2019s case. The officer lost control of his car and struck several pedestrians following a trip with his family to Mount Fuji in May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The accident resulted in the deaths of two Japanese citizens. A Japanese court convicted him of negligent driving and sentenced him to three years in prison in October of that year, upholding that conviction after a July appeal hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But his family \u2015 including his wife Brittany Alkonis, who attended the 2023 State of the Union address in February as a guest of Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark. \u2015 has argued that the officer was suffering from delayed altitude sickness at the time of the accident and that the Japanese judge disregarded a doctor\u2019s diagnosis<\/a> in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n