[Reporter’s Notebook] Guarding Against Even a “0.8% Misjudgment”

There are times when a mere 0.8% probability can completely destroy a person’s life. This is what happens in criminal trials on murder charges. In the courtroom, judges have no choice but to hand down stern decisions, and defendants must fight so that no sense of injustice remains.
According to a 2023 study by Lee Jung-won, a psychology professor at Hallym University, 6 out of 748 murder case rulings handed down between 2013 and 2020 were cases of erroneous judgment, where the lower court’s verdict of guilt or innocence was reversed by the final court. The ratio is only 0.8%, but some of those people were branded as “murderers” by lower courts and only narrowly cleared later. The study found that wrongful decisions at first instance, such as undervaluing the probative force of properly collected eyewitness statements and testimony, led to these errors.
The weight of such “misjudgments” became real to me after I met Mr. Song, a party to the so-called Yeongwol Farmers’ Association murder case, last December. He had stood trial as the defendant in a 2004 murder case in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province, and in December last year the Supreme Court of Korea finally acquitted him, restoring his freedom after 20 years.
Mr. Song was on a family trip to his hometown when he became entangled in the case. He was identified as the culprit because he was wearing sandals similar to the footprints found at the scene. The trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment on that basis. However, after a new forensic examination on appeal, the judgment was overturned and he was found not guilty.
Mr. Song said that during the investigation and trial, the most painful thing was the gaze that took it for granted he was the “criminal.” His whereabouts at the time of the crime, possible motive, and other eyewitness statements were all insufficient to prove guilt, yet a single piece of circumstantial evidence—the “footprints”—overwhelmed every other consideration.
Even though his acquittal is now final, his life has already been left in ruins. Reinvestigations and search-and-seizure operations over more than 20 years, along with repeated summons for questioning and travel bans, made it impossible for him to live a normal life. Even after the not-guilty verdict, YouTube videos and news articles that portray him as the perpetrator remain online. Mr. Song said, “I don’t know if the mental damage from those 21 years can ever truly be compensated.”
“When in doubt, for the defendant.” This legal maxim, still often quoted today, remains valid. It is the fundamental principle of criminal trials that if reasonable doubt cannot be completely ruled out, the defendant must be acquitted.
For this principle to be more than a mere declaration, we must maintain a constant vigilance against the possibility of error in judgment, however small it may look in numbers—such as 0.8%. Because for someone, that 0.8% was their entire life.
scottchoi15@fnnews.com Choi Eun-sol, Social Affairs Desk Reporter