Supreme Court: "Failure to Reduce Sentence for Defendant Who Confessed to False Accusation Is Wrong"

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to set the range of the sentencing without applying the statutory confession mitigation, even while granting confession mitigation under criminal law when a defendant who committed false accusation admits to the crime.

Sentencing range refers to the specific scope of punishment concretized by applying all aggravating and mitigating factors to the statutory penalty prescribed by law. For example, if the statutory penalty is "imprisonment for up to 1 year or a fine of up to 10 million won," and there is a legal mitigating factor, if imprisonment is chosen as the type of punishment between imprisonment and fine, the sentencing range becomes "imprisonment for up to 6 months," which is half of the statutory penalty according to the legal mitigation.

The Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Judge Kim Seonsu) announced on the 5th that it overturned the original judgment that sentenced Mr. A, who was indicted for false accusation, to a fine of 3 million won and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court.

The court stated, "The original judgment misinterpreted the legal principles regarding confession, which is a mandatory mitigating factor in false accusation cases, and this error affected the judgment outcome."

Mr. A was indicted on charges of false accusation against Mr. B during the process of testifying as a victim in a sexual violence case involving Mr. B’s violation of the Sexual Violence Punishment Act (indecent act in a crowded public place) at the Jamsil Station Subway Investigation Unit 2 office in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on November 30, 2019.

At that time, although no such incident actually occurred, Mr. A falsely testified that Mr. B insulted him with phrases like "crazy bitch, you’re out of your mind," "get lost if you don’t want to die," and "are you a gold digger trying to extort money?" while pointing fingers, and wrote at the bottom of the statement, "Please punish Mr. B additionally for charges including threats, insult, defamation, and assault besides the forcible molestation."

However, during the investigation, it was revealed that Mr. B never made such remarks, and Mr. B was not prosecuted for charges such as insult.

Subsequently, Mr. A was prosecuted for false accusation against Mr. B.

At the second trial of the first instance, Mr. A admitted all the charges and confessed. In false accusation cases, if the defendant confesses, the sentence must be mitigated or exempted.

The first trial court found Mr. A guilty of false accusation and sentenced him to a fine of 3 million won. Both Mr. A and the prosecution appealed, but the second trial court dismissed both appeals. Mr. A then filed a further appeal against the second trial judgment.

The issue in the appeal was whether it was appropriate for the lower courts to grant confession mitigation to Mr. A but not to record the sentencing range as the actually mitigated sentence.

The statutory penalty for false accusation is "imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to 15 million won." However, the first trial court, in the "Application of Law" section, noted the confession mitigation under Article 157 of the Criminal Act regarding false accusation and Article 55(1)(6) of the Criminal Act stating "when mitigating fines, it shall be half of the maximum amount," but in the "Reason for Sentencing" section, recorded the sentencing range as "fine of up to 15 million won." Originally, according to the mandatory mitigation rule, the sentencing range should have been recorded as "fine of up to 7.5 million won."

The Supreme Court found this lower court judgment problematic.

The court pointed out, "It is evident that the defendant admitted and confessed to the charges at the second trial session of the first instance, and the person falsely accused was not prosecuted, so the trial procedure did not commence. This falls under 'when the defendant confesses or surrenders before the trial or disciplinary action of the reported case is finalized,' so the first trial court should have applied the mandatory sentence mitigation under Article 157 of the Criminal Act."

Furthermore, the court stated, "Since the statutory penalty for false accusation is 'imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to 10 million won,' in this case where a fine was chosen as the punishment, if confession mitigation was applied, the legal sentencing range should be 'fine of up to 7.5 million won.' However, the first trial court recorded 'confession mitigation' and Article 157 of the Criminal Act in the application of law section but recorded the sentencing range as 'fine of up to 15 million won' in the reason for sentencing section," and added, "The appellate court judgment that upheld this first trial judgment misinterpreted the legal principles regarding confession as a mandatory mitigating factor in false accusation cases, which affected the judgment outcome."

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