On November 15, 2007 the Korean Supreme Court made a landmark decision to exclude illegally obtained physical evidence. In 2007 the National Assembly revised the Criminal Procedure Code to stipulate Article 308-2 for the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, which is effective as of January 1, 2008. Since then, the Supreme Court has made a series of decisions whether to exclude the derivative evidence by applying the “fruit of poisonous tree” doctrine. This Article critically reviews four Supreme Court decisions regarding the “fruit of poisonous tree” doctrine. The issue of the first case is whether to exclude the succeeding blood test obtained upon the defendant’s request besides the breath analyzer test after illegal “voluntary accompaniment.” The issue of the second case is whether to exclude the following urine test obtained upon a judicial warrant in addition to the urine test obtained by illegal arrest. The issue of the third is whether to include physical evidence obtained by the following search of defendant’s home and his confession in police station even if police officer obtained the defendant’s personal information by the violation of the Act for Real Name Financial Transaction and Confidentiality. The issue of the fourth case is whether to exclude physical evidence obtained in the defendant’s home besides his incriminatory statements obtained without giving the Miranda warnings.

On November 15, 2008 the Korean Supreme Court made a landmark decision to exclude illegally obtained physical evidence. It also adopted the “fruit of poisonous tree" doctrine, which excludes the derivative evidence obtained through the first tainted evidence. This Article reviews the Supreme Court's two decisions that applied the “fruit of poisonous tree" doctrine. First, the Decision of March 12, 2009 provides more specific standards to decide whether to exclude “tainted fruits." It requests comprehensive evaluation of all the circumstances regarding the collection of the first tainted evidence: the reasons and degree of process violation, the possibility of avoiding the violation, the causation between process violation and evidence collection, and the willfulness or negligence of law enforcement officers. Then, it does not exclude the physical evidence obtained without warning the suspect of the right to silence. This Article argues that the right to silence is the most crucial legal instrument to protect a suspect, particularly when the suspect is under interrogation without his/her counsel; it is a grave violation for a police officer not to warn a suspect of the right; in this case, exceptions of the “fruit of poisonous tree" doctrine are not applicable; so the physical evidence obtained without warning a suspect of the right to silence should be excluded. In the Decision of October 23, 2008 the Supreme Court held that the fingerprints on the illegally seized bottles and cups are admissible even if the seizure of the bottles and cups is illegal. This Article argues that such a view may weaken the constitutional request for warrant for search-and-seizure; the illegal seizure of the bottles and cups contaminates the evidentiary power of the fingerprints. In this case, however, the consent of the victim who is the owner of the bottles and cups is reasonably inferred, so the seized bottles and cups are admissible and the fingerprints on them are also admissible.