Counts in the prosecution should be specified by crime time, place and method. It is required not only for defendants to protect their procedural rights but also for courts to limit the scope of the trials. Moreover, count specification is helpful for prosecutors to prove that defendants are guilty.
Drug abuse is usually committed secretly at a private place. It has few evidences, in case a suspect denies his/her drug abuse charge. About a decade ago, the Supreme Court of Korea tended to rule that the defendant charged for drug abuse was guilty with only hair analysis that revealed a drug component at the dependant's hair. However the Court has dismissed the drug abuse case that had hair analysis as single evidence since 2000. The Court's 2005Do7465 decision delivered Dec. 9, 2005 confirmed the recent Court's holdings that the drug abuse count based only on hair analysis didn't meet the requirement of count specification.
This article reviews most Court's decisions related to count specification, examines hair analysis and focuses on the drug abuse indictment mainly based on hair analysis. I totally agree with the Court's view for following reasons. First, although hair analysis is admissible, it has still limitations as evidence; it doesn't prove when or how the dependant consumed drugs. In addition, it doesn't show the correlation between used drug amount and detected drug amount. Second, when a dependant denies hair analysis, a prosecutor is responsible for showing the custody of chains in the hair analysis. Third, considering the function of the count specification - protecting dependants' procedural rights - the drug abuse count relied only on the hair analysis is deemed not specified.