80-Year-Old Kept Police Warrant for a Month... Supreme Court: "Not Theft"

No intent to use the warrant for its economic function
No intent to unlawfully appropriate it established
Overturns and remands lower court ruling imposing a suspended prison sentence
for theft and obstruction of official duties

The Supreme Court found an 80-year-old man not guilty of theft after he took and hid a search and seizure warrant being executed by police and demanded to exchange it for items taken from him. The court’s reasoning was that he had no intent to appropriate the warrant unlawfully for economic use.

According to legal sources on October 28, the Supreme Court, with Justice Seo Gyeong-hwan presiding, overturned the lower court ruling that had sentenced Kim, 86, to one year in prison, suspended for two years, on charges of theft and obstruction of official duties. The case was remanded to the Busan District Court.

The incident occurred on January 8, 2025, when police were conducting a search of Kim’s home in connection with allegations that his wife had violated the Housing Act. When police seized 30 bank and credit card statements in Kim’s name, he strongly protested, saying, "These are not items that should be seized."

Kim took the statements and refused to return them. When he pushed an officer who tried to retrieve them, police took the statements back. Kim then took the original search and seizure warrant and the receipt for the inventory of seized items from a table and sat on them on the sofa. He insisted, "If you return my statements, I’ll give these documents back." During the incident, he struck an officer on the back of the hand when the officer demanded the documents, and also threw a clump of salt at the back of an officer’s head as the officer was leaving. It was not until February 4, more than 20 days later, that Kim voluntarily turned over the warrant after being pressed by investigators.

The central issue in the case was whether Kim’s act of taking the search and seizure warrant and other documents and withholding them for nearly a month constituted theft. For theft to be established, there must be an intent to use or dispose of another person’s property as if it were one’s own - an intent to appropriate it unlawfully.

The trial court and the appellate court found Kim guilty of both obstruction of official duties and theft. The lower courts recognized the intent to appropriate unlawfully, reasoning that "the defendant repeatedly refused requests to return the documents and held them for a lengthy period, making it difficult to view his possession as merely temporary use."

The Supreme Court, however, reached a different conclusion. It upheld the guilty verdict for obstruction of official duties but found Kim not guilty of theft, stating that "the mere fact that the defendant possessed the documents for a lengthy period does not establish that he intended to appropriate them unlawfully." The court ruled that "to establish such intent, it must also be proven that the person intended to use or dispose of the item in accordance with its economic function." It added that "it is virtually impossible for a private individual to use the original search and seizure warrant for its intended purpose, and, considering that the defendant said he would return the warrant if his statements were returned, it is difficult to conclude that he intended to use it in accordance with its economic function." The Supreme Court found that the lower court had misapplied the law in its ruling on the theft charge. As the two charges were treated as concurrent offenses and a single sentence had been imposed, the court overturned the entire lower court ruling and remanded the case.

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