The koso appeal rate against judgements of the first instance handed down in 1998 was 10.2% for district court judgements and 5.1% for summary court judgements. High court koso appeals were received from 5,670 defendants in 1998. In terms of the side filing the appeal, this breaks down into 5,557 (98.0%) filed on the defendant's part alone, 89 (1.6%) filed on the public prosecutor's part alone, and 23 (0.4%) filed on both parts, with 1 case (0.0%) reversed and referred back by the Supreme Court(source:Annual Report of Judicial Statistics).
  Table II-7 shows the results of high court adjudication in trials on koso appeal in 1998, by type of offense. The proportion of defendants subject to final processing (5,670) was 69.1% for rejected appeals, 16.7% for withdrawn appeals, and 13.7% for new judgements. By type of offense, the withdrawal ratio was high for Stimulant Drug Control Law violations (23.6%), larceny (23.0%), Immigration Control Law violations (17.9%), and bodily injury, assault, and unlawful assembly with weapons (16.9%). The new judgement ratio, meanwhile, was high for Public Offices Election Law violations (66.7%), professional negligence (33.6%), rape and indecent assault (29.3%), and fraud (23.1%). As to the reason for reversing the original judgement, 169 (21.5%) of the 786 judgements that were reversed were due to inappropriate sentencing. As a result of the new judgement, 10 defendants had their judgement overturned and were acquitted, this accounting for 0.2% of the total number of defendants subject to final processing.

Table II-7 Number of defendants finally processed in koso appeals, by offense (1998)

  Moreover, of the cases against which public prosecutors filed koso appeals due to a judgement of not guilty in the trial of the first instance, 21 defendants were subjected to a trial of koso appeal in 1998. Of these, 20 (95.2%) had their first instance judgements overturned and were found guilty(source:Annual Report of Statistics on Prosecution).
  The jokoku appeal ratio against judgements by trials of koso appeal handed down in 1998 was 39.2% of the total, higher than the jokoku appeal ratio against first instance judgements. In 1998, jokoku appeals were received from 1,643 defendants by the Supreme Court, while 1,490 were subject to final processing by the Supreme Court as trials of the last instance. This breaks down into 376 (25.2%) withdrawn jokoku appeals, 1,103 (74.0%) rejected jokoku appeals, and 1 defendant (0.1%) referred back or transferred(source:Annual Report of Judicial Statistics).