y daughter when he was 18, a ruling that follows intense public debate in Japan over how severely young offenders should be punished. The 1999 case, in which the youth strangled and raped the woman and killed her 11-month-old baby, prompted an outpouring of public emotion after the woman's husband called for the youth to be executed.
Convicted criminals in Japan can be executed by hanging if they are 18 or over at the time of the crime, but death penalties for young offenders are rare.
The country deems anyone under the age of 20 years as a minor so the defendant in this case cannot be named because the youth was 18 years and one month old when he committed the murders.
"This is not something to be happy about. I solemnly accept the court's decision," the widower, Hiroshi Motomura, told a news conference after the verdict, having sat in the court room holding a picture of his wife and daughter.
"There has been retribution, so the family has been compensated to some degree, but the results are the deaths of my wife, daughter and the defendant, and that's not positive for society."
Media said the defendant listened to the sentencing quietly and bowed to the judge, prosecutors, lawyers and the victims' family before leaving the court room.
His lawyers have appealed the ruling, Kyodo news agency said.
"It's a very unfortunate ruling. We built a detailed case based on forensic medicine, but most of it was not recognized," one of the defendant's lawyers told a news conference.
The sentence, which came after the Supreme Court ordered a retrial following a high court ruling of life imprisonment for the defendant, has fuelled debate over the rising influence of victims and their families in court cases.
The defendant had initially admitted to the murders but during the retrial denied he had any intent to kill, Kyodo said.
The start of the court session was televised live by most broadcasters, and media said more than 3,800 people had vied in the morning for the 26 public viewing seats.
The ruling sheds light on the growing trend towards stiffer penalties for young criminals and a rise in death sentences in general, underlined by a public perception that violence is rising and an increasingly vocal victims' rights movement.
Those against executions worry that emotions will get in the way of fair trials as Japan starts a lay judge system next year.
"People may think that sentencing someone to death can be done lightly," said Nobuto Hosaka, a lawmaker opposed to the death penalty. "There needs to be more debate on capital punishment."
Opinion polls show most Japanese support capital punishment, although human rights groups condemn the practice.
"If the death penalty is to be handed down, there needs to be an explanation that there could have been no other punishment, but there wasn't one," said Makoto Teranaka, secretary-general of Amnesty International Japan, of the ruling.
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