Supreme Court Confirms 15-Year Sentence for 60s Man Who Killed Remarried Wife Suspected of Infidelity

A man in his 60s who brutally murdered his wife after she threatened divorce upon suspecting infidelity was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The defendant argued that it was not a premeditated murder and that he should be charged with injury resulting in death, but this claim was rejected.

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

According to the legal community on the 6th, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Lee Dong-won) upheld the original sentence of 15 years imprisonment and confiscation of seized items in the appeal trial of Kim (65), who was charged with murder, violation of the Act on the Protection and Use of Location Information, and property damage.

The court stated the reason for dismissing Kim's appeal was that "there was no error in the lower court's judgment that violated the rules of logic and experience, exceeded the limits of free evaluation of evidence, misrecognized facts, or misunderstood the legal principles regarding the establishment of murder."

Additionally, the court explained the reason for rejecting Kim's claim of excessive sentencing: "Considering various factors that affect sentencing conditions, such as the defendant's age, character, environment, relationship with the victim, motive, means and results of the crime, and circumstances after the crime as shown in the records, the lower court's sentence of 15 years imprisonment is not excessively unfair."

Kim was tried on charges of killing his wife A (53), whom he remarried on July 23, 2022, after confronting her about her affair and engaging in an argument.

Besides the murder charge against A, Kim was also accused of attaching a location tracking device to A's car without her consent several days before killing her and receiving location information, as well as damaging A's mobile phone after the murder.

In court, Kim claimed there was no intent to murder and that the charge should be injury resulting in death. He also argued that even if there was intent to kill, his actions were in self-defense or excessive self-defense against A, who was attacking him at the time.

However, the first trial court found that Kim had repeatedly stated since early July 2022 that he would not tolerate his wife's infidelity once confirmed, recognizing sufficient motive for murder. The court also judged that the force applied to A at the time of the crime was enough to cause death.

Ultimately, the first trial court found Kim guilty of all three charges (murder, violation of the Location Information Act, and property damage) and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Kim appealed, but the second trial court upheld the same judgment. The second trial court also dismissed the prosecutor's appeal claiming that "the first trial's sentence was too lenient and that the dismissal of the request to attach an electronic tracking device to Kim was illegal."

The court stated, "The lower court's judgment that the evidence submitted by the prosecutor is insufficient to conclude that there is a substantial likelihood that the defendant will commit murder again in the future and disturb legal peace to the extent that an order to attach an electronic tracking device after the completion of the sentence is necessary is reasonable."

Kim appealed to the Supreme Court, but it also found no issues with the second trial court's judgment.

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