"You're a judge, I'm a prosecutor," court play that killed inmates, sentenced to death on a life sentence.

■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: November 7, 2024 (Thursday)
■ Host: Lawyer Lee Won-hwa
■ Dialogue: Attorney Kim Deok-jin

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Lawyer Lee Won-hwa (hereinafter dualized): Do you think a criminal who brutally murdered someone can repent and be edified? Or are you more sympathetic to the saying that people don't change? This incident, which I will introduce to you from now on, is an incident that occurred in the Gongju Prison in 2021. The three perpetrators, who entered the prison for different crimes, were put on trial on charges of brutally assaulting another inmate, B, who was living in the same room with them, eventually leading to his death. When asked why he assaulted B, he answered that it was because he just wanted to hit him and it was fun. Mr. A, the main culprit of the case, had been sentenced to life imprisonment for robbery and murder. What does it mean to sentence such a person to life imprisonment or less? What do you think? Let's take a closer look at this case in today's case X file. Hello, I'm Lee Won-hwa, the case X file of lawyer Lee Won-hwa. Today, we are also with lawyer Kim Deok-jin of Law Firm Roel. Welcome, lawyer.

◇ Lawyer Kim Deok-jin (hereinafter referred to as Kim Deok-jin): Yes, hello. This is Kim Deok-jin, lawyer of LOEL Law Firm.

◆Binary: Murders occur in prisons. It sounds like something that can only be done in movies or dramas, but it was only three years ago in 2021. This actually happened, right?

◇Kim Deok-jin: Yes, I was surprised, too. Surprisingly, it actually happened. On December 21, 2021, an inmate killed another inmate inside the Gongju Prison. The main culprit A and two accomplices continued to harass victim B by playing legal games in the prison, and eventually B died.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: You just said it's a court play, what's a court play?

◇Kim Deok-jin: The content is quite shocking. If the person acting as a prosecutor asked the person acting as a judge to allow him to assault the victim, and the person acting as a judge allowed him to assault the victim, the person acting as an executive officer assaulted the victim.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: That's really strange. But I don't have a lawyer.

◇Kim Deok-jin: That's right.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: There's no one to save you.

◇Kim Deok-jin: That's right. Prosecutors, bailiffs and judges were only allowed to do so. Mr. A and two accomplices were found to have assaulted victim B by hitting him in the chest, damaging his chest and abdomen, assaulting him alone with clubs and plates, torturing him by twisting nipples or genitals with clothespins, stabbing his thigh with a sharp pencil, or placing a plastic bottle containing hot water on the top of his head to cause burns to his head.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: It's almost torture if you listen to what you said. Why on earth did you do that? Did you not get along with each other?

◇Kim Deok-jin: Yes. Turns out he had no grudge relationship and stated it was simply for fun.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I'm saying everything because it's amazing, but what's different from other criminal cases is that the perpetrators are inmates living their sentences. Among them, there is a rumor that A, who was called the main culprit, was a weapon.

◇ Kim Deok-jin: Yes, that's right. The main culprit A was a life sentence for robbery and murder, and two accomplices were sentenced to three years in prison for fraud and one year for assault.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: The main culprit A has already been sentenced to life imprisonment, so he has nothing to lose. I think you might have thought that. The two accomplices were sentenced to three years and a year in prison and could soon leave in a way, so I wonder why they did this. But A, who you just mentioned, said he was sentenced to life imprisonment for robbery and murder, so he was serving time for killing someone before. What was the case by any chance?

◇Kim Deok-jin: Mr. A committed the crime by luring the victim to a deserted road in Gyeryong-si, Chungcheongnam-do, and hitting him with a hidden blunt instrument after he decided to trade directly with the victim who posted a gold panda on an Internet used trading site. At that time, Mr. A hit the victim who knelt down and begged for his life several times with a blunt instrument and fled with the victim's money and vehicle.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: Even a car?

◇Kim Deok-jin: That's right.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: There was a rumor that the victim was alive at the time.

◇Kim Deok-jin: Yes, the victim was alive at the time. The victim lost his mind and woke up a few minutes later, and fortunately, he met a passerby passing by and was robbed by a person who wanted to buy gold, explaining that the culprit was a 180cm skinny black jumper and looked like he was in his 20s. The suspect was then taken to a hospital, but unfortunately, he died two days later while receiving treatment.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I feel grateful and a little sad because I think the victim has passed away after helping to arrest the criminal. I wonder how great it would have been if I could have saved my life. Still, I don't think there would have been much difficulty in arresting the criminal because the victim made a statement. How was it?

◇Kim Deok-jin: The victim's statement played a part. The police analyzed the details of the victim's mobile phone calls and found text messages exchanged by A to make gold transactions with the victim on a mobile phone.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: There was even a fake phone?

◇Kim Deok-jin: That's right. It seems that they prepared it meticulously using a cannon phone. However, it was difficult for the police to identify the suspect because the person who wanted to buy gold used a cannon phone. Accordingly, the police identified the suspect after analyzing the surrounding CCTV, and arrested Mr. A at a motel in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, five days after the incident. However, Mr. A denied the crime, saying he did not remember it, and only then did he reveal the crime when the police found gold, such as bracelets, necklaces, and rings, that he had taken from the victim at Mr. A's mother's house.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Actually, this is not something you can't remember. Five days after the crime, I feel so brazen to make a statement that I can't remember the person who attacked the victim and stole money and valuables in a very cruel way.

◇Kim Deok-jin: It doesn't make sense to me that I don't remember the plan like this.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: That's right. Police investigations are not that easy. But what you feel every time you deal with a case is that if you don't remember and say no, you think you're innocent? Or is it just brazen? In any case, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at the time and was serving time in Gongju Prison, but in the meantime, he assaulted and killed a fellow inmate. After all, it's this, right?

◇ Kim Deok-jin: At that time, A was handed over to trial on charges of robbery and murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in the first trial, but the second trial reversed the original ruling and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Mr. A appealed immediately, but the Supreme Court dismissed it, and the final sentence of life imprisonment was confirmed. In the meantime, A assaulted and killed another inmate.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I don't think he had any attitude to reflect on the crime at all. There is a story that this person assaulted a person for fun and eventually died, but this person kept reversing his statement.

◇Kim Deok-jin: Yes, that's right. Mr. A initially claimed that it was a single crime, but reversed the joint crime statement. Mr. A said he was responsible for the atmosphere because he was a weapon, but he said he felt betrayed by other defendants handing over all the crimes, revealing the reason why he reversed his statement. But Mr. A told me about the robbery and murder case before. I reversed my statement then, too. Mr. A admitted the crime during the investigation process and then suddenly denied the crime. And Mr. a also claimed during the trial that the accomplice planned and carried out everything.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: Are you relatively less responsible? In a way, at first, I was going to just take it, but later on, I felt bad about it, so I should increase the sentences of accomplices. I think that's what I thought.

◇Kim Deok-jin: I told you that inmates are serving prison terms like this for a year and two years. I think it was a little bit reprehensible and did it.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: And in fact, when you commit a crime, if you have an accomplice relationship, you are usually punished more heavily than just a single crime. That's right. So, it seems that taking it alone at first is taking it, and it was an operation to reduce the sentence. And later on, I should push the sentences to these people so that they and their accomplices get high sentences. Then in the end, I think all strategies and statements were expressed in that bad mind and selfish mind. What was the outcome of the trial?

◇Kim Deok-jin: The result of the trial is that on July 6, 2022, the prosecution demanded the death penalty for the main culprit A and 20 years in prison for two accomplices, respectively. On July 27, 2022, the first trial court sentenced the main culprit A to life imprisonment, and the remaining accomplices to two and a half years in prison and five years in prison.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: But is it meaningful that you are already serving your sentence as a life sentence and have been sentenced to life imprisonment again? From the perspective of the bereaved families, this must have been particularly frustrating.

◇ Kim Deok-jin: The bereaved family expressed strong regret over the first trial's ruling, saying that the injustice was not resolved, but rather added. However, the results were overturned at the appeal trial.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: How did you turn it upside down?

◇Kim Deok-jin: On January 26, 2023, the second trial court accepted the prosecution's claim that the sentencing was too light and sentenced the main culprit to death, A, to 12 years in prison and 14 years in prison for each of the remaining accomplices. However, the Supreme Court overturned the result again. The Supreme Court dismissed the accomplices' appeals on July 13, 2023, and the sentence was confirmed, and the main culprit, A, needs to be severely punished, but the death penalty is excessive, so it was destroyed and returned to the second trial court, the Daejeon High Court. Since then, the prosecution has applied to the prison to check whether there is a possibility of A's edification and what efforts were made to recover the damage according to the purpose of the Supreme Court ruling.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: What I thought about while listening to this case is, of course, the biggest problem is the perpetrators who committed this crime. However, he did not know the assault until the murder took place in the prison. Even if I didn't know this, even if I knew the problem and left it unattended, I think it's all a problem.

◇Kim Deok-jin: There was a controversy over whether the inmate management was actually sloppy, and there were also voices that the prison failed to classify dangerous inmates and non-dangerous inmates.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: That's right. I think it was a failure of the correctional administration. Case X File Today, we have a look at the terrible crime of a weapon who assaulted and killed a fellow inmate while in prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment for robbery and murder. There's a question I asked the listeners at the beginning of today's broadcast. I was wondering if the person who killed someone could be incarnated or if he thought the killer was an eternal killer. Of course, you won't be able to find an answer related to this case alone. But shouldn't we be careful about too lax a judgment about the perpetrator? That's all we've prepared for today. Incident X file, thank you everyone.