The first instance court sentenced Jin-woong Jeong, deputy chief of the Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office, who had been tried for self-inflicted assault, to four months in prison and one year of probation.
He was found guilty of assaulting Prosecutor Han Dong-hoon by abusing his authority while performing his duties as a prosecutor.
It has been about a year since the assault on July 29 last year.
The court gave a verdict and scolded Deputy Prosecutor Jung.
"In the execution of a search and seizure warrant, the physical restraint of the seized must be strict," he said. It led to the assault without paying attention to whether it could be justified."
In particular, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong pointed out, "During the investigation and trial process, he only claimed that his actions were justified, so he did not reflect on his actions and results, and there was no effort to recover the damage."
At the time when the legal judgment was made for self-inflicted assault, Deputy Prosecutor Jeong has passed on the cause of the physical collision to the prosecutor, not himself.
A prosecutor has attempted to destroy evidence and has argued that physical contact was inevitable in the process of stopping it.
However, the court did not accept this argument of Prosecutor Jung.
1st trial analysis... "It's hard to believe that you said you would look at Han Dong-hoon's phone"
In the judgment, the court of first instance stated in detail that some facts were recognized by the evidence that the court legally adopted and investigated.
Key excerpts from the judgment are recorded below.
Titles and titles of names in parentheses have been omitted for readability.
The victim (Han Dong-hoon) was summoned for questioning by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.
At that time, the investigator who guided the victim to the investigation room witnessed the victim doing the same thing as lifting the cell phone in front of her face and lowering the mask to unlock the cell phone while riding the elevator with the victim.
The above investigator reported to the defendant (Jeong Jin-woong) that the victim seems to be using Face ID (an unlock function through facial recognition, which automatically unlocks the phone when you put your face on it) as a method of unlocking the mobile phone. did.
The Channel A case (*referring to Lee Dong-jae's attempted coercion) investigation team believes that if the victim obtains a SIM chip that is inserted into a new mobile phone, the victim will be able to check the contents of the communication with reporter Lee Dong-jae through Telegram or KakaoTalk. and requested a search and seizure warrant using the victim's mobile phone SIM, Telegram, and KakaoTalk contents as objects to be confiscated.
The Seoul Central District Court issued a search and seizure warrant (hereinafter referred to as 'this case search and seizure warrant') with an expiration date of July 22, 2020 until August 5, 2020.
As can be seen here, Prosecutor Jeong received a search and seizure warrant for the purpose of securing a cell phone SIM chip from a prosecutor and began execution.
The plan was to confiscate a SIM chip from a prosecutor, plug it into another mobile phone air system, receive a verification code, and view conversation lists and text messages for a certain period of time.
It is stated in the ruling that Deputy Prosecutor Jeong also demonstrated this execution method on July 28, 2020, the day before the execution of the search and seizure warrant.
At 11 am on July 29, 2020, the day of the search and seizure, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong's party arrived at the Legal Research and Training Center where a prosecutor was located and said, "I have come to execute a search and seizure warrant."
Prosecutor Han said, "I will call the lawyer to participate in the execution of the search and seizure warrant."
Regarding the situation immediately before the physical collision, the judgment records:
(Han Dong-hoon) said he would call the lawyer, and the defendant (Jeong Jin-woong) allowed it.
The victim picked up the cell phone and started entering the password after a while.
Contrary to what was previously reported, the defendant found it strange that the victim manipulated the phone without unlocking the phone with Face ID, and thought that the victim was entering a password to destroy evidence, such as deleting the contents of Telegram or KakaoTalk.
At this, the accused stood up and said, "You must not do this," and hurriedly approached the victim.
Regarding the situation in which Deputy Prosecutor Jeong approached Han, the court added that some of the allegations of Deputy Prosecutor Jeong were not accepted as facts.
Deputy Prosecutor Jeong said that he approached a chief prosecutor and said that he had to look at his cell phone, and then approached and looked at the screen of his cell phone.
The court said, "(Jung Jin-woong) is clearly stating that there is no fact that he said that he was going to look at his cell phone." In addition to saying, "You must not do this," It is difficult to see that he said additional words,' he pointed out.
In other words, even before the physical collision, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong gave a kind of advance notice to one of the prosecutors, saying, 'I will watch from the side to see if it is right to just make a call to the lawyer, not other actions on my cell phone'. Contrary to this, the court held that there was no reality.
"It must be said that there was an unwritten intention in Jeong Jin-woong's assault event...it is not a legitimate act."
A key issue in the trial was whether or not Prosecutor Jeong's assault was intentional.
In this regard, the court explained in its judgment that this was the case.
In the process of suppressing the passive resistance of the victim, who stretched out his hand to the other side to avoid taking the cell phone from the seated state against the sudden approach of the accused (Jeong Jin-woong) and the act of trying to take the cell phone, the accused took the victim's body The fact that considerable tangible force was exerted on the body by pressing with Although the defendant continued to hold down the victim and tried to take the cell phone to the end, the defendant claimed that he just lost his center and collapsed in the process of taking the cell phone. Even after falling to the floor and the defendant on the victim's body, the defendant continued to take the cell phone, but did not correct his posture or stop physical contact. It is reasonable to assume that the defendant not only intended to take away the cell phone during a series of physical contact, but also had an undetermined intention to exercise tangible force on the victim's body.
Accordingly, we also do not accept the argument of the accused and his defense counsel that the accused did not intend to assault on his own.
The court ruled that 'it cannot be said that Deputy Prosecutor Jeong's actions at the time were not intentional'.
Now, the next issue is whether the assault occurred at the time, as Prosecutor Jeong insisted, was justified by the refusal to cooperate with Prosecutor Han.
In this regard, the court ruled as follows:
At that time, there is no objective data to admit that the victim (Han Dong-hoon) actually tried to destroy the evidence that was the subject of the search and seizure.
On the victim's cell phone screen secured by the defendant (Jeong Jin-woong) at the end of the exercise of tangible force, a horizontally long password input window floated below with the phrase "Your password is required after restarting iPhone".
In light of the objective state of the mobile phone screen above, it seems that the victim was just entering the password to restart the mobile phone in a situation where the power of the mobile phone machine was turned off and on. It is difficult to believe that the gram app itself was deleted or attempted to be withdrawn.
(omitted) As long as the
accused could use other less intrusive means, such as telling the victim to stop moving or restraining him with words, even if he did not secure a mobile phone by applying direct physical force to the victim's body, the defendant's actions were not substantive. It did not meet the requirements, and in that respect, it cannot be regarded as a legitimate act.
Therefore, the argument of the defendant and the defense counsel that the defendant's act is a legitimate act and that the illegality is eroded cannot be accepted.
"Exercise tangible force right away without asking to check the screen of the cell phone... neglect of duty"
The court judged that Deputy Prosecutor Jung's actions did not meet the requirements for justification as such, and finally decided how to view Deputy Prosecutor Jung's actions. It seems that the conductor misunderstood this and took a physical action even though he was not in a situation where he had to take a just act. However, in conclusion, this part was also not recognized.
The reason that the defendant (Jeong Jin-woong) misunderstood as above is due to the fact that the victim (Han Dong-hoon) was informed in advance that the phone was unlocked using Face ID.
Judging from the state of the cell phone screen immediately after the victim's cell phone was taken away, it seems that the victim entered the password of the cell phone in the process of activating the cell phone by turning it off and then on. It is believed that it took a rather long time (compared to what the defendant subjectively expected).
However, there may be various possibilities why the operation of the mobile phone takes longer than expected, and even though it is relatively easy to check other possibilities other than the subjectively thought by the accused, Methods such as questioning whether input is being made or requesting screen confirmation are possible) The defendant immediately proceeded to exercise tangible force.
(omitted)
At the time of this case, the victim was alone, and the accused was in the position of responsible for overseeing the execution of the search and seizure warrant accompanied by the prosecutor and investigators. Considering the fact that the recognition of justification for the exercise of justification in the five-pointed act* should be more prudent than the five-pointed self-defense case that misunderstood that there is an imminent violation of the body, even if the accused is suspected of destroying evidence, the victim's It can only be seen that the duty to observe or confirm the behavior more carefully has been neglected.
* Five-sang (誤想) just act: performing a just act in a situation that cannot be recognized as a just act
* Justification: Acts or actions that are not illegal.
Incumbent deputy prosecutor who was sentenced to 4 months in prison and 1 year of probation... Eyes on Park Bum-gye · Kim Oh-soo
The court rejected all of Prosecutor Jeong's claims that the assault was not intentional and justified.
He was also sentenced to four months in prison and one year of suspension of qualifications for self-inflicted assault, which was a violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes.
However, considering the fact that Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong committed the crime accidentally and had no intention of exercising tangible force from the beginning, and that he had served as a prosecutor for a long time and had no history of punishment, we decided to suspend the probation of the prison sentence for one year.
Deputy Prosecutor Jeong kept his mouth shut before the trial, just as he did when he entered the courthouse.
He also remained silent on questions from reporters asking about his position on the verdict.
No official statement has been made on whether to appeal.
When the victim, Prosecutor Han Dong-hoon, was found guilty of the conviction of Deputy Prosecutor Jeong, he said, "The violence of power that tried to cover innocent crimes is a process in which the judicial system corrects." He also criticized, "Even though the chief prosecutor was charged with assaulting himself while performing his official duties and was convicted, none of the Ministry of Justice and Prosecutors even apologized to the victims and the public for over a year." In particular, Lee Seong-yoon, chief of the Seoul High Prosecutor's Office, who at the time directed the investigation into himself as the chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, pointed out that he was on the command line of the self-inflicted assault case and emphasized, "This is impossible in a normal rule of law, so it should be corrected."
Deputy Prosecutor Jeong was promoted to Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office without being excluded from his duties even after being prosecuted in October last year, and is currently working at the Gwangju Prosecutor's Office. In November of last year, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office requested the Ministry of Justice to carry out the duties of Deputy Prosecutor Jeong, but at the time, Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae questioned the adequacy of the prosecution process and conducted a fact-finding investigation with the Supreme Prosecutor's Inspection Department. state. The Supreme Prosecutor's Office announced that immediately after the conviction of Deputy Prosecutor Jeong, the fact-finding investigation was in progress at the Supreme Prosecutor's Office under the direction of the Ministry of Justice.
The problem is that there are many opinions that it is not appropriate for Prosecutor Jeong to perform his duties as it is in a situation where the judgment of the first instance court is found to be guilty. It is pointed out that it is impossible for a prosecutor who has been found guilty by the court of assault on his own charge of assault to lead the investigation of criminal cases and other matters in the front-line prosecutor's office. If Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jung does not step down and takes the position that he wants to receive a Supreme Court decision, the matter becomes a little more complicated. Article 69 of the National Public Officials Act stipulates that a public official must retire if he or she is sentenced to imprisonment without prison labor or heavier punishment. In this case, there is a possibility that an unprecedented measure of dismissal of the inspection will be taken. However, the fact that such an unprecedented process proceeds itself is highly likely to remain a small burden and mistake for both Prosecutor Jeong and the prosecution organization.
At a press conference in May, Minister of Justice Park Beom-gye said, "There is a difference between being tried and expulsion from duty or discipline," said Lee Seong-yoon, chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, who was about to be indicted at the time. As Minister Park said, then Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon was promoted to Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office without taking any action even after he was handed over to the trial on charges of exerting external pressure on the investigation of 'Kim Hak's illegal departure'. According to Article 8 of the Prosecutor's Discipline Act, the Minister of Justice may order a person suspected of disciplinary action to suspend the execution of his/her duties, and the Prosecutor General may request the Minister to suspend the execution of his/her duties if he/she deems that the execution of his/her duties is inappropriate.
The 'Channel A Coercion Case', which was once referred to as 'sword and tongue collusion' by a broadcasting company and passport, was a conspiracy relationship between a prosecutor and a former reporter Lee Dong-jae, even at the time when Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong was in charge of the investigation as the first chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office. could not be proved in the end. After that, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jeong was promoted to the Gwangju District Prosecutor's Office and transferred to the Gwangju District Public Prosecutor's Office, and then the investigation was continued. Moreover, as former reporter Lee Dong-jae, who was arrested by the investigative team last month, was acquitted in the first trial, virtually losing the little power of the investigation.
As the suspect was acquitted and the investigation team leader was found guilty, it became even more difficult to avoid the stigma that the 'Channel A Coercion Case' was an unreasonable investigation. Now, attention is focused on the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Prosecutor's Office as to how Minister Park and Prosecutor General Oh-su Kim will look at this case now, and how the incumbent prosecutor will handle the life of the incumbent prosecutor, who was sentenced to probation of imprisonment for an unprecedented self-inflicted assault.
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▶ [Report file] The truth of the day of Jin-woong Han’s ‘Independent Assault’ ① : Witnesses
▶ [Report File] The truth of the day of Jin-woong Jung’s ‘Independent Assault’ by Dong-hoon Han ②: Adverse testimony
▶ [Report file] Jin-woong Jeong’s The truth of the day of Dong-Hun Han's 'Independent Assault' ③ : Victim's testimony
▶ [Report file] The truth of the day of Dong-Hun Han's 'Independent Assault' by Jin-Woong Jeong ④: The last statement of the perpetrator