"‘I Was Driving’ Lie by Friend... Supreme Court Grand Bench: Drunk Driving Offender Who Did Not Stop It Also Guilty"

Supreme Court: "Tolerating a False Confession
Also Constitutes Abuse of Defense Rights...
No Escape from Punishment"
8-5 Split Among Justices
"Severe Penalty for Acts that Distort Investigations"

The Supreme Court Grand Bench has ruled that assisting or allowing a passenger to falsely confess to police in order to cover up one’s own drunk driving constitutes an “abuse of the right to defense” and is punishable.

On June 18, the Supreme Court Grand Bench (presided by Supreme Court Justice Oh Kyung-mi) announced that it had finalized the lower court’s ruling, which sentenced Mr. A, who was indicted for violating the Road Traffic Act (drunk driving) and for being an accessory to harboring a criminal, to 10 months in prison with a two-year suspended sentence.

Mr. A was prosecuted on charges of facilitating a criminal escape by making it easier for his friend, who was in the passenger seat, to make a false statement to the police by claiming, “I was the one driving,” and by submitting to the breathalyzer test after being caught drunk driving.

Yonhap News Agency

Until now, the Supreme Court has not punished offenders for escaping on their own, considering it an exercise of the right to defense. However, so-called “fabrication-type criminal escape,” in which another person is put forward as a false perpetrator, has been regarded as an abuse of the right to defense and has been subject to punishment. The issue in this case was whether a perpetrator can be punished as an accessory to harboring a criminal even if they merely assisted or allowed another person’s false confession rather than directly instructing (soliciting) them to do so.

On this matter, the Supreme Court Grand Bench, by a majority opinion of 8 (guilty) to 5 (not guilty), upheld the lower court’s conviction of Mr. A as an accessory to harboring a criminal. The majority opinion (8 justices) stated, “When a person facilitates another’s false confession to help the real offender evade justice, this constitutes an abuse of the right to defense and meets the requirements for being an accessory to harboring a criminal, as established by current case law.”

The ruling continued, “There is a serious risk that a false perpetrator could make it impossible to investigate or try the real offender, thereby causing significant disruption to the criminal justice process. If only direct solicitation is punishable while mere assistance is not, this could lead to the misuse of related parties’ statements to evade criminal liability.” The court clarified that the punishment cannot be determined based on whether the involvement was direct solicitation or mere assistance.

On the other hand, five justices, in their dissenting opinion, argued, “Unlike direct solicitation, which corrupts another person and creates a new offender, assisting the principal offender’s actions is essentially an act rooted in human nature’s instinct for self-preservation. Expanding the exceptional legal principle of abuse of the right to defense to include mere assistance is inconsistent with the principle of legality and other fundamental legal doctrines.”

This ruling is interpreted as reaffirming the validity of the existing legal doctrine that considers it an abuse of the right to defense—and therefore punishable as being an accessory to harboring a criminal—when a perpetrator promotes, strengthens, or facilitates another person’s false confession or statement on their behalf.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.