공판이 진실발견의 장이 되어야 한다는 데는 많은 사람들이 동의할 것이 다. 우리 법 제310조의2도 법정에서의 진술을 최상위에 두고 있다. 이 점 은 대륙법의 직접심리주의이든 영미법의 전문법칙이든 차이가 없다. 사실 판단자가 법정에서 진술을 듣고 진실을 발견하라고 한다. 하지만 이러한 원칙에 모두 예외를 두고 있다. 전문법칙에도 법정 외 진 술을 사실인정의 자료로 쓰는 예외가 꽤 규정되어 있고, 직접심리주의에서 도 법관 앞에서 한 진술은 법정 외 진술이어도 증거로 할 수 있는 길을 열 어두고 있다. 이제 문제는 수사기관이 작성한 서류라면 조금 더 폭넓게 증거능력의 예 외를 인정할 것인가? 검증조서에 수사기관의 목격 진술을 적고, 압수조서나 수사보고서에도 적게 할 것인가, 하는 점이다. 그건 아니라고 본다. 예외가 원칙을 훼손하지 않도록 하기 위해서는 우리 대법원이 어느 지점 에선가 ‘더는 안 된다’는 말을 해 주어야 한다. 검증조서와 압수조서, 수 사보고서에 들어가 있는 진술의 증거능력에 대한 법원의 꼼꼼하고 단호한 검토를 기대하는 이유다. 중요한 것은, 증거서류 규정의 합리적 해석을 통 해 공판중심주의를 강화하는 것이기 때문이다.

대상판례에는 두 가지 문제가 있다. 첫째, 대상판례는 숫자 세기를 잘못하고 있다. 전문진술 상황은 매체가 하나인 경우고 재전문진술은 매체가 두 개인 경우다. 조서는 그것 자체로 매체 2개, 즉, 수사기관과 조서를 포함하고 있기 때문에 숫자를 셀 때 둘로 세야 한다. 이건 우리가 선택할 수 있는 문제가 아니라 전문법칙을 채용한 모든 나라에서 지켜야 하는 정의에 관한 문제다. 둘째, 제316조 제1항은 ‘공판준비 또는 공판기일에서의 진술’이라고 규정함으로써 공판정에서의 진술에 적용되는 조항임을 명확히 하고 있다. 수사기관에서 진술한 자에 대해서 적용되는 규정이 아니다. 수사기관 앞에서 진술하면서 진술자가 자신이 경험한 바가 아니라 피고인이 진술한 것을 그대로 되뇌어, 결과적으로 피고인의 방어권 보장에 문제가 생길 수는 있다. 그 문제의 해결 방법은 원진술자를 불러서 같은 진술을 반복 하게 하거나, 최소한 성립의 진정을 인정하게 하면 되는 것이다. 그럼으로써 제316조의 취지를 충분히 구현할 수 있다. 그렇지 않고, ‘조서 상 진술도 전문진술이니까 바로 제316조 제1항이 적용된다,’라고 결론을 내리는 것은 특별한 실익도 없이 문제를 복잡하게 만든다. 조서 안의 진술을 진술, 전문진술, 재전문진술로 나누는 것이기 때문이다. 지금 생각해 보면, 두고두고 아쉬운 것은 제310조의2를 도입할 때 지금 위치에 둘 게 아니라 제314조와 제315조 사이에 두지 못한 점이다. 그랬다면 제311조와 제314조까지는 조서규정으로 남고, 제315조와 제 316조는 전문법칙의 예외로 분리되었을 것이다. 즉, 우리 법은 직접주의의 원칙에 따라 조서의 증거능력도 제한하고, 영미에서 수입한 전문법칙도 갖춘, 피고인의 방어권 보장에 충실한 법이 되었을 것이다. 그런데 조서규정 앞에 전문법칙 규정을 둠으로써 모든 게 헝클어져 버렸다. 조서가 전문법칙의 예외로 읽히는 이상한 상황을 맞게 된 것이다.

In the korean supreme court case in question, the fact needs to be reconsidered, that the prosecutor’s record containing the statement of witness that becomes the decisive evidence to prove the guilt was left out. Especially, even though the court judged that the chance of cross-examination was provided to the declarant of the record and there was no substantial violation of procedural rules, it could have assess the circumstantial guarantees of truthworthiness. Every issue will be absorbed into the principle of free evaluation of evidence, if the admissibility of the prosecutor’s record is not considered. It is so hard to completely agree with the argument of the dissenting opinion in which in case of inconsistent statements more weight of reliability must be placed on a court testimony. It is because it is clearly in violation of the principle of free evaluation of evidence to simply more rely on a court testimony in case of inconsistent statement. In light of the facts appearing in the case in question, it was possible to assess reliability of circumstances of statement separately from total consideration of reliability of evidences. Most of all, the witness’ statement before prosecutor should not have easily admitted when considering its’doubtful circumstances. Therefore, the courts, expecially the appellate court, should have closely examined the circumstances by having the persons related to the prosecutor’s interrogation take the stance. Because this process was left out, the requirement of the circumstantial guarantees of truthworthiness was not satisfied.

The Criminal Procedure Act of Korea prescribes that a written statement prepared by the investigative authority is admissible as evidence, only if it was prepared in compliance with the due process and proper method. The requirement of ‘due process and proper method’ means the legality of the process and method of preparing a written statement by the investigative authority. On the other hand, the Article 7 of the Korean act on protection of specific crime informants(hereinafter referred to as “the informants protection act”) provides that when any retaliation is likely to be taken against an informant of a crime or his/her relatives, prosecutors or police officers are not required to note all or part of information which verifies the identity of the informant of the crime, such as a name, age, address or occupation. In regard to the requirement of ‘due process and proper method’, it is questionable whether a written statement of witness under a pseudonym is admissible as evidence where it is prepared on the crimes other than the specific crime prescribed in the informants protection act. In this case, the lower court and the appellate court decided that a written statement of witness under a pseudonym was not admissible because the questioned crime of blackmail was not the specific crime and the statement under a pseudonym did not comply with the due process and proper method. On the contrary, the Supreme Court of Korea decided that the investigative authority could prepare the protocol of a written statement under a pseudonym, if there had been a probable cause considering a combination of circumstances such as the relation between witness and the defendant, the type of crime, the necessity of protecting the witness because the Criminal Procedure Act did not require a real name in the written statement to verify the identity of witness. And the Court ruled that the meaning of ‘due process and proper method’ prescribed in the Article 312 of the Criminal Procedure Act was that the investigative authority must comply with all process and methods provided in the Criminal Procedure Act, like informing of the right to remain silent where a written statement was prepared. However, the balancing test of a probable cause in the ruling has a problem with not presenting a bright-line rule in the investigative procedure and arousing new controversies.

Although vivid testimony of the witness and/or the defendant in the courtroom is very important in fact-finding, hearsay evidences are widely accepted in relation to the criminal cases. Recently diverse medias such as documents, audio-tapes, video-tapes, computer discs or electronic files which recorded statements spoken by a private person under the private circumstance are available as evidences to prove the fact asserted in such statements.According to the Criminal Procedure Act in Korea the document which contains the statements of the defendant or the witness written by a private person is admissible when autograph, sign or seal of the writer or the speaker is certified and correctness of recording is confirmed by the writer or the speaker in the courtroom during the trial. But the document which contains the statement of the defendant is admissible when correctness of recording is confirmed by the writer in the courtroom during the trial and especially reliable circumstance is affirmed, even if the speaker deny the statement in the document.With regard to the admissibility of recorded statement, the authentication of record might be established by the speaker or the recorder. And the correctness of recording in principle should be confirmed by the speaker. But the defendant is inclined to deny his/her own past statement which may be construed as evidence leading to conviction. So the recorder might confirm the correctness of recording if the speaker made the statement under the especially reliable circumstance.

Introducing hearsay rule in 1961, the words of provisions that provide the authentication and attendance of the declarant as exceptions of principle of the court's self-experience, were used as exceptions of the hearsay rule. It results in confusion of the elements of the hearsay rule with the elements of the authentication in the jurisprudence. Many literatures insist and place emphasis on the elements of the authentication as the elements of exceptions of the hearsay rule. With this confusion and misunderstanding, it became very difficult to understand the hearsay rule and many improper interpretations result from this confusion. In the future, the discussion which distinguish the elements of the hearsay rule from the elements of the authentication should be made actively and lead the academy and practice.

In this case, the appeal court says, the fact that the defendant used the privilege against self-incrimination and denied answering the questions of the police in the investigative process could not be used as evidence for evaluating the charge to the disadvantage of the defendant. This reference is appropriate. But the principle that we must not use the fact of no answer as evidence for regarding the assertion of the defendant as unreliable should not be confused as a principle that we must give an advantage to the no answer defendant. No answer could not prohibit the fact finder from infering truth from the indirect circumstantial facts. In this case, the defendant insisted that the drug in his body was not injected by him and he did not know how it was in his body. As two persons known visited him the day of arrest and he saw they put injectors in the waterpot, he thouhgt propably they injected the drug in his body in a stealthy way. But the defendant only insisted this story and did not give any clue with which this story could be checked up and for identifying the two persons. Therefore his assertion should be valued as unreliable because of the unreliability of the assertion itself, not because of the fact of no answer. And as the subjective factors as perception, intention, knowing etc could be infered by indirect factors, in this case, the fact that the defendant injected the drug voluntarily could be presumed from the fact that he was arrested in the intoxication in his room, there was none in his room when he was arrested, injectors were founded in his room. So the fact-finding of the court would be said inappropriate.On the other hand, the appeal court says, when the defendant decided to use the privilege against self-incrimination and not to answer, the police should immediately stop questioning. As in this case the police continued questioning, the interrogation is illegal. But this comment is inappropriate because the current criminal process law recognize the right to question to the public attorney and the police independently to the right of the defendant not to answer. Consequently the police can put questions to the defendant though he uses the privilege. But it is up to the decision of the defendant, whether he refuses all questions from the beginning to the end, or reply partly. As for ruling the interrogation, Korean law is different from the American law. Furthemore, in this case, the questions the police put to the silent defendant were for the name or for affirming whether the defendant would use the privilege or not. Because the questions are not for the fact for the defendant's charge, it would be not illegal with the viewpoint of American law.

The criminal procedure commonly provide for the joinder of defendants, whereby two or more persons may together be prosecuted in a single trial. Assume a case in which defendants A and B have been lawfully joined for trial, but at that trial the prosecution intends to offer against A a confession by him stating, in effect, that he and B committed the crime. That right of an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against him would be violated if A, by his confession, was a witness against B but could not be cross-examined. So to speak, where the powerfully incriminating judicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused sideby- side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the judge in a joint trial. In fact, it seems to me that “interlocking” bears a positively inverse relationship to devastation. A codefendant' confession will be relatively harmless if the incriminating story it tells is different from that which the defendant himself is alleged to have told, but enormously damaging if it confirms, in all essential respects, the defendant' alleged confession. It might be otherwise if the defendant were standing by his confession, in which case it could be said that the codefendant' confession does no more than support the defendant' very own case as corroborating evidence. But it might be otherwise if the defendant denies about his confession, in which case it could be said that the codefendant' confession is required as corroborating evidence that supports the defendant' very own case.

The right to remain silent is a basic right of the defendant or suspect guaranteed by the constitution and criminal procedure law. It is important to notify the right to the defendant or suspect so that he can excercise the right properly and effectively. It is appropriate to exclude the statement made by the suspect if the Miranda right notice is not given to him. However, once the police officer give the Miranda warning to the suspect, the statement after the notice can be admissible by the purged taint exception rule except that the officer abuse the rule. In addition to that, even if there is a breach of notification, the real evidence should be admissible. It is because the purpose of Miranda rule is to protect the statement not the real evidence. According to newly revised Korean Criminal Procedure Code, the range of exclusion can be interpreted very widely. However, we must be careful when we apply the rule to the real case in order to seek the balance between the human rights and social safety.

Recently, many people live or travel abroad by various reasons. In this global era, we cannot only require the witness to come to homeland for testifying in court. It is necessary to provide a new method to take a reliable evidence which can solve the case with the witness staying abroad. In this case, the Prosecutor's Office try to give a new method by requesting the Consul in Japan to hear the witness and record the statements. According to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Consul can hear the people of the Consul's nation. German Consular Relations Law provides that the admissibility of out of court statements recorded by Consul is regulated according to the institution which makes the request. Therefore, if the request comes from court, the statements recorded by the Consul according to the request are treated as statements recorded by Judge. From this point of view, the Prosecutor's Office insisted that the out of court statements recorded by Consul in Japanese be treated as the out of court statements recorded by Judge in deciding the guarantee of trustworthiness. But the Court construed that the statements recorded by Consul as the statements recorded by private person. Worse than this, the Court denies the guarantee of trustworthiness as the condition for the admissibility for the evidence. But this guarantee of trustworthiness as a condition for admissibility is relatively lower level of reliability than the reliability for the selection from the admissible evidences for trusting the facts asserted. The selection from the admissible evidences is for the fact finder, for example, trial jury. not for the leader of the procedure. But in this case, the Court seems to be unable to distinguish this guarantee of trustworthiness as a condition for admissibility from the issue of selection from the admissible evidences for trusting the facts asserted. So the Court's decision is inappropriate and the statements recorded by Consul should have been admitted.

In 1983, Supreme Court ruled that policemen could not testify to the defendant's confess when the defendant objected. The Court reasoned that since the Code of Criminal Procedure denied the admissibility of the documents which was made by the police and contained the defendant's confess when the defendant object, the policeman was not allowed to testify to that effect, either. The Code of Criminal Procedure, however, does not explicitly prohibit the use of such testimony. As for the document which contains the confess of the defendant, it is extremely difficult to contest. Because the defendant cannot cross-exam the policeman who interrogated the defendant or the defendant himself. But as for the testimony, the reliability can be guaranteed by the cross-examination. In addition, such testimony often includes first-handed, accurate information and cannot be obtained otherwise. This study is an attempt to illustrate such an occasion. In this case which was ruled in 2005, Supreme Court once again denied the admissibility of the interrogator's testimony. However there are some special elements to be considered. Here, the policeman met the defendant near the crime scene just after he had committed homicide; the setting was not interrogatory; the defendant freely admitted that he had killed the victim. If he had met a civilian, he would have told the same story. In situation like this, there is no danger of misconception, manipulation, or memory lapse. This case clearly shows that under certain circumstance it is necessary, sometimes desirable to admit interrogators' testimony. In conclusion, the admissibility of the policeman's testimony should not be decided uniformly. Rather, it should be decided case by case in the light of reliability.