[살인죄 적용 아동학대 사망 사건 5건 판결문 분석]
Even if the child’s life is dangerous due to frequent assault, neglect, even more hitting
Securing evidence to prove the’unwritten intention’ of the offender is the key
“Not guilty of murder” due to lack of proof of “Wonju 3 Siblings Case”
On the 5th, in the graveyard of Jeong In-i, a victim of the’Adopted Child Abuse Death Case’ enshrined in the High Family Andersen Park Cemetery in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, a memorial is writing a letter with a memorial message. Jung In, who was 16 months old, died in October last year due to continued abuse of her adoptive parents. Newsis
Ahead of the first trial of’Jung-in’ (adopted child abuse death case), voices are growing that the perpetrator, the adoptive parents, should be severely punished for murder. In fact, in the wake of the’Ulsan stepmother case’, the number of cases where murder is applied in child abuse death cases is gradually increasing, and there are not a few cases where abusive parents were sentenced to severe sentences of around 20 years in prison. However, depending on the specific circumstances of abuse, the court’s judgment of guilt was mixed. Therefore, in the end, the question is whether the prosecution can secure additional evidence to prove the’unwritten intention’ of the murder in the future.
According to law enforcement officials on the 6th, last month, the prosecution handed over her wool to a trial on charges of child abuse and fatality, and her adoptive father for child abandonment and neglect. It is because of the sentence that the two people are condemned to “apply the crime of murder”. According to the Supreme Court’s sentencing criteria, the basic sentence range for child abuse and fatality is 4 to 7 years in prison, whereas for murder, the difference is quite large.
In general, judicial institutions have applied injuries and lethal charges to the offending parents when a child victim of abuse dies. Abuse is secretly carried out at home, and the child who will testify to the damage has already passed away, and unlike ordinary murder cases, there are often no weapons, so it is seldom easy to prove the’intention of murder’ in court. In addition, there are many cases where the offender’s parents say,’I hit him, but I didn’t intend to kill him.’ In order to be convicted of murder, at least it must be proved that the perpetrator has continued to engage in abusive acts while recognizing that’this could lead to the death of the child’.
“The fist of an adult is a weapon”… Ulsan stepmother case, first applied for murder
Members of a civic group who listened to the sentence of appeal of Park Mo, a stepmother in Ulsan held at the Busan High Court in October 2014, are crying out of the courtroom. Park, who was convicted of beating her 7-year-old stepdaughter and killing her, was convicted of murder at an appeal trial, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison, three years longer than the first trial. yunhap news
A representative case in which’unwritten and intentional murder’ is recognized is the’Ulsan stepmother case’. In October 2013, her stepmother, Park Mo, was charged with beating her seven-year-old stepdaughter who said she wanted to go on a picnic and killed her. Initially, the first trial court sentenced him to 15 years in prison, saying, “A medium sentence is deserved,” but the murder charge was judged innocent. The reason was that it was difficult to say that there was a sudden murder intention on the day of his death, in light of the fact that Park continued to assault his stepdaughter, and that he was assaulted with hands and feet, not with a weapon, and that the child’s head was avoided when hitting him with his feet.
However, under the second trial, the Busan Penal Code, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison. It was a monumental ruling that first recognized the intention of murder in a case of child abuse by bare hands or feet. The judge pointed out that “to a 7-year-old child, an adult’s fists and feet are like weapons.” In addition, the part where Park recalled the time of the assault and stated that “the stepdaughter screamed and there was no blood on her face” was also judged as “a situation in which the child’s life could be sufficiently recognized”.
Even in the case of Wonyoung, who was confined to the toilet for 3 months, he admitted to murder
Kim-mo (left) and his father, Shin-mo, who had abused 7-year-old Won-young by habitual assault and confined in the bathroom, are leaving the Pyeongtaek Police Station in Gyeonggi-do to move to the site inspection site in March 2016. yunhap news
The step-mother and father of the so-called’Won-young case’ were also convicted of murder, and their sentences were finalized for 27 and 17 years, respectively. Stepmother Kim, 6-year-old Won-young, was confined in the bathroom from November 2015 to the day of his death in February of the following year, and was routinely assaulted by giving only one or two meals a day. The father neglected it. The first trial court was able to predict the possibility of dying from hypothermia if Won-young, who was continuously abused, was starved due to malnutrition. While acknowledging’intentions of murder’, he sentenced Kim to 20 years in prison. In the second trial, the sentence of seven years increased, and the Supreme Court decided as it was.
The lower court rulings in the death case of child abuse, acknowledging murder, came out last year. Lee Mo, a stepfather in her twenties who killed her 5-year-old stepson after routinely assaulting her five-year-old stepson with a wooden sword, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last month, whose sentence was higher than the first trial in the Seoul High Court. The second trial judge said, “It was enough to be able to visually confirm that a problem occurred in almost all parts of the victim’s body. Nevertheless, Mr. Lee (the day before his death), rather than curing the child, threw it back on the floor and assaulted him, tied his limbs to the back of his body, and left him for several hours.”
In June last year, a 9-year-old stepson with a dwarf physique was confined in a suitcase for more than 7 hours, resulting in death. In the process of the trial, St. Mary’s side claimed that there was no intention of murder, saying, “I checked the child’s condition from time to time, and after opening the bag, I immediately performed CPR on the child.” However, the first trial was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the fact that Mr. Sung △he went out for three hours with his child locked in his bag, and mobilized himself as well as his own children to run on the bag.
Evidence of’intentional proof’ is required… 檢 requested reappraisal to three autopsy people
On the 5th, a memorial visitor to the High Family Andersen Park Cemetery in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, commemorates the 16-month-old Jung In-i, the victim of the murder of an adopted child. News 1
Regarding the death case of child abuse, the court judged the existence of’intention to murder’ of the perpetrator, taking into account the context, such as △the frequency and intensity of the assault and abuse △the health status of the child just before death △the neglect or additional abuse after the assault. come. Even in this case, it seems that the crime of murder can only be applied only when it is revealed that the wool and the like were “to the extent that Jung-in could die,” but continued to inflict the assault, or that the child was neglected without treatment even though the child was severe after the abuse.
There is a prospect that the possibility is open in the legal profession. Lee Myung-sook, a lawyer at the Korea Women’s Children’s Rights Center, said, “If you take a photo, hospital records, and a reference to a teacher or doctor who are reporting abuse as evidence, it seems possible to prove the intention of murder.” The Korean Women’s Bar Association also issued a statement on the 4th that “it is not unreasonable to condemn murder by looking at the facts of the damage reported in the media and the evidence that has emerged.”
Court judgment on’application of murder crime’ in child abuse cases. Graphic = Reporter Moon Joong Kim
There is also an opinion that other murder cases in which the victim is an adult can be referred to. Seung Jae-hyun, a researcher at the Korea Criminal Policy Research Institute, said, “The unwritten intention was recognized in the’Jeju female teacher murder case’ in which an adult woman was killed by striking the pancreas to rupture. “If we prove that the pancreas ruptured due to external shock, we can fully admit the unwritten intention, considering that the vulnerable child is the victim.”
However, the task is that the investigative agency must secure additional evidence to support the exercise of the wool’s power at the time of the incident. This is because there are cases in which a father in his twenties was convicted of innocence due to lack of verification after prosecuting for murder, such as the case of’Three Brothers in Wonju’, where two children who had not passed their first birthday were suffocated and killed. It was investigated that Jung In-i suffered abdominal damage and died from a strong shock to the back, but the cause of the shock was not clearly identified. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office said, “Please look at the cause of death and injury of Jeong In-i,” and requested a re-evaluation from three autopsy people.
Choi Na-sil reporter [email protected]
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