Supreme Court Confirms Not Guilty Verdict for 70s Charged with Injury Resulting in Death in Severe Alcoholic Dementia Case

Prosecutor's Claim of 'Diminished Capacity' Rejected
Second Trial Confirms 'Insanity'

An elderly man who was hospitalized and receiving treatment for severe alcoholic dementia was acquitted after being prosecuted for fatally beating a fellow patient sleeping in the same hospital room without any apparent reason.

The prosecutor charged the defendant, believing that he was in a state of 'diminished capacity' at the time of the crime but still had some cognitive ability. However, the court ruled, based on expert evaluations, that he was in a state of 'insanity' and therefore lacked the criminal responsibility required for punishment.

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

According to the legal community on the 5th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Seo Kyunghwan) upheld the lower court's verdict acquitting Park (77), who was charged with injury resulting in death.

The court explained its reason for dismissing the prosecutor's appeal, stating, "There is no error in the lower court's judgment that violates the rules of logic and experience or exceeds the limits of free evaluation of evidence, nor is there a misapplication of the law regarding mental incapacity."

Park was charged with fatally striking another patient sleeping in a hospital in Saha-gu, Busan, multiple times with a fire extinguisher in the early morning of August 7, 2021.

At the time, Park was hospitalized and receiving treatment for alcoholic dementia and other conditions. Around 3:30 a.m., when he tried to leave the hospital room, a nursing assistant repeatedly stopped him. Subsequently, Park struck Mr. A (80, male), who was sleeping on the right side of his bed, with a fire extinguisher.

Mr. A was transferred to another hospital for treatment but ultimately died on the afternoon of August 10, 2021, three days later.

The trial focused on whether Park's cognitive ability at the time of the crime was insufficient, as the prosecutor claimed, constituting a state of 'diminished capacity,' or whether he was in a state of 'insanity' with no cognitive ability.

For a crime to be established, the perpetrator must have the capacity to understand the meaning and content of legal norms, recognize the commands or prohibitions of the law (capacity to distinguish things), and have the ability to act accordingly (decision-making ability), in other words, criminal responsibility.

Article 10, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Act stipulates that "an act committed by a person who lacks the capacity to distinguish things or to make decisions due to mental or physical disability shall not be punished," thereby exempting acts committed in a state of insanity from punishment.

Paragraph 2 of the same article states that "an act committed by a person whose capacity is diminished due to mental or physical disability may result in a reduced sentence," defining diminished capacity as a discretionary mitigating factor.

If the capacity to distinguish things refers to the intellectual ability of the actor, decision-making ability can be seen as the volitional ability. Korean criminal law recognizes a person as insane and exempts them from punishment if either of these two abilities is absent. If either ability is diminished, the person is considered to have diminished capacity and may receive a reduced sentence. In other words, a person with diminished capacity has criminal responsibility but their ability is significantly impaired compared to a normal person.

The first-instance court judged Park to have been in a state of insanity at the time of the crime, acquitted him, and dismissed the prosecutor's request for treatment and custody.

The court reached this conclusion based on Park's treatment history and expert evaluations.

Park began receiving treatment for "mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol use (dependence syndrome)" around December 2004. After being diagnosed with "alcoholic dementia" in June 2008, he was hospitalized for treatment six times until March 2020. In July 2018, he was hospitalized for treatment of traumatic subdural hemorrhage. After brain surgery, his dementia symptoms worsened, and from August 3, 2020, he was admitted to the hospital where the incident occurred for treatment.

From September 1 to September 19, 2021, about a month after the incident, a medical examiner from the Korean Medical Association's Medical Evaluation Institute conducted a psychiatric evaluation of Park. The doctor assessed Park's dementia and cognitive impairment as "severe cognitive impairment requiring considerable assistance from others in daily life due to overall decline in orientation (ability to recognize place, time, people, etc.), memory, and judgment."

Regarding Park's decision-making ability at the time of the crime, the examiner stated, "Currently, the examinee suffers from severe language impairment, making it difficult to understand others' speech and express his own intentions, as well as damage across cognitive functions including orientation, memory, judgment, reasoning, and calculation, resulting in loss of logical judgment ability and corresponding to a state of insanity." The evaluation continued, "On August 7, 2021, the overall deterioration scale was estimated to be at least 5, which clinically defines a patient unable to make daily life judgments or solve problems, suggesting that he was in a state of insanity at that time." Similar results were found in another evaluation.

During a police interrogation on August 13, 2021, six days after the incident, Park was able to answer questions about his name, residence, and resident registration number but could not recall the motive, circumstances, or situation of the crime, showing no awareness of the crime or investigation and experiencing communication difficulties. This was also taken into account by the court. Additionally, Park did not attend the first trial due to issues with his decision-making ability, but the trial proceeded in his absence under the provisions of the Treatment and Custody Act.

The court concluded, "It can be recognized that the defendant was in a state of significantly impaired cognitive function due to alcoholic dementia at the time of the crime, lacking the capacity to distinguish things or make decisions. Therefore, the crime was committed while the defendant was in a state of mental incapacity, and under Article 10, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Act, he cannot be punished."

Regarding the prosecutor's request for treatment and custody, the court stated, "Although treatment and custody primarily aim to protect and treat mentally disabled persons, they involve deprivation of liberty by forcibly confining the individual in a treatment and custody facility. Therefore, if the mentally disabled person can receive treatment outside such a facility, the necessity of treatment and custody must be judged more strictly in accordance with the principle of proportionality." The court further judged, "Based solely on the evidence submitted by the prosecutor, it is insufficient to recognize that the person subject to treatment and custody poses a risk of reoffending or requires treatment in a custody facility."

The prosecutor appealed, but the second-instance court reached the same conclusion.

The Supreme Court also found no problem with the second-instance court's ruling, which upheld the first-instance court's judgment.

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