This is a treatise on the legality of the practice of attaching the crime counts exhibit as the part and parcel of the indictment or information (hereinafter referred to as ‘indictment’). Recently, the Korean Supreme Court decided the exhibit will not be considered as a part of the indictment. In Korea, it became conventional that the prosecution attached the exhibit of the crime counts stored in CD-ROM because the printout of the voluminous crime counts, such as those of the copyright infringement and the privacy infringement, bloats to the tune of several millions and tens of million pages. But this time, the Supreme Court decided that this kind of practice is not tenable anymore. But this decision of the Supreme Court seems at odds with the plain interpretation of the current criminal procedure law because ‘whatever is attached to the content of the indictment constitute a part of the whole indictment’ is the literal construction of the text of law. Moreover, it is strange to render it illegal when indictment attach the footnote that the crime count is so voluminous that the specifics will be appended in the CD-ROM format and actually appends the crime counts exhibit. It is not only illogical but also impractical to interpret that the appended crime exhibit is out of the scope of the indictment or is overstepping the bounds of the court hearing. It is well known that, in certain types of crime, such as the copyright infringement or the privacy infringement, crime counts exhibit extend to tens of thousand pages. If we stick to the traditional notion that all the crime counts should be presented in the physical document format, it will be not only impractical but also tremendous waste of efforts and expenses. If we take into account the recent development that the electronic document usage steadily replacing the paper document usage in civil and criminal justice system and peoples are sufficiently accustomed to the data storage devices, providing the crime counts exhibit in the form of electronic storage will be conducive to enhancing the interest of the defense if we take into account that it is time-saving and efforts-saving to analyze and archive the case record in the electronic platform. It is the right time to revise the criminal procedure law to avoid the controversy on the permissibility of the presenting the crime counts exhibit in the form of the electronic storage. It will be desirable to allow the prosecution to present the crime counts exhibit in the form of electronic storage unless it will curtail the right of the defendant and if it will meet the practical necessity of the court to authenticate the crime counts of the indictment.

Article 215 of the Criminal Procedure Act does not limit explicitly the time limit that public prosecutor should request a warrant to seize, search or inspect evidence. But after the public prosecutor filed the charges, he cannot request a warrant by article 215 of the Criminal Procedure Act. After the indictment, the court may seize any articles which, it believes, may be used as evidence, or liable to confiscation, by article 106 of the Criminal Procedure Act. And the court may, if necessary, search the defendant, effects, or dwelling or any other place of the defendant, by article 109(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act. The court may search the person, effects, dwelling or any other place of a person other than the defendant, only when there are circumstances which warrant the belief that there are articles liable to seize therein. If the public prosecutor collected the evidence by a search warrant issued from a district court judge other than the court in charge of the case, those evidence are not admissible in principle, because those collection of evidence does not follow legal procedures, which are prepared for human rights. Supreme Court decided it April 28, 2011, on 2009Do10412 case.