All
| TITLE | Supreme Court en banc Decision 2020Do4140 Decided October 22, 2020 【Murder; Abandonment of a Corpse; Violation of the Child Welfare Act (Child Abandonment; Child Negligence)】 [full Text] |
|---|---|
| Summary | |
|
[1] In a case where the criminal defendant, classified as a juvenile at the time the judgment of the first instance was rendered, was sentenced to an indefinite term of imprisonment, and the appellate court, in which the criminal defendant alone appealed, ought to change an indefinite term of imprisonment of the first instance court into an definite term of imprisonment as the criminal defendant attains his/her majority, the standard for determining whether the principle of prohibition on disadvantageous alteration is violated (held: the medium term, corresponding to the median between the short term and long term of an indefinite term of imprisonment) [2] In the case where the first instance court, convicting the criminal defendant, classified as a juvenile at that time, of murder and abandonment of a corpse, sentenced the criminal defendant to an indefinite term of imprisonment, the maximum term of which shall not exceed 15 years, and the minimum term of which shall not exceed seven years, which were the upper limit of the minimum and maximum terms, stipulated in Article 4(2) of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Specific Violent Crimes, corresponding to special rules of the proviso of Article 60(1) of the Juvenile Act; the criminal defendant alone appealed in response thereto; the lower court, reversing the first instant judgment ex officio and sentencing the criminal defendant to a definite term of imprisonment as majority was attained by the criminal defendant prior to the rendition of the lower court, sentenced the criminal defendant to seven years in prison on the grounds that imprisonment for more than seven years, the minimum term of an indefinite term of imprisonment of the first instance court under the principle of prohibition on disadvantageous alteration could not be sentenced, the case holding that the lower court determined that the standard for determining whether the principle of prohibition on disadvantageous alteration is violated ought to be 11 years in prison, corresponding to the medium term between the short term and the long term of an indefinite term of imprisonment when sentencing the criminal defendant to a definite term of imprisonment instead of the indefinite term of imprisonment imposed by the first instance court, and, in so determining, the lower court erred by misapprehending the legal doctrine |
|
