ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Recent statistics showed that a single judge tries Korean judges tries 111 defendants and a single prosecutor handles 845 cases in average per year in Korea. Because of high number of cases that judges and prosecutors handle, it is suggested to expand the total number of judges and prosecutors and to adopt plea bargaining procedure in Korea. Plea bargaining is agreement between a prosecutor and a defendant where the defendant pleads guilty in the expectation of leniency. Although Korea Ministry of Justice pre-announced the sentence reduction for cooperating witness legislation, the legislation did not receive enough vote from the National Assembly. Plea bargaining and the sentence reduction for cooperating witness share fundamentally the same mechanism even though the title of the each procedure is different. If these types of systems or procedures are introduced in Korea, it is expected to increase the effectiveness of trial procedure, but legal and practical issues will raise questions whether it violates the preassumption of innocence and whether the judge who handles the plea bargaining procedure is violating the role of judges. Furthermore, it is also possible that an innocent suspect can accept a plea offer and falsely confess to the crime that he/she did not commit or provide information for third party's criminal conduct to investigators. The purpose of this research is to examine and analyze factors that influence the plea decisions of suspects. In order to achieve this, the study provides research participants with procedures that closely resemble what actual suspects can experience during investigating interviews. This research study analyzed to examine how 63 participants decided when a guilty plea was offered. The study exposed participants to an academic dishonesty case and manipulated the substantial truth (academic dishonesty vs. no dishonesty) and the level of punishment (strong vs. weak) to examine whether they admit their guilt. The study results suggested that 49.2% of participants admitted their guilt in general. More specifically, about 65.3% of the participants in the academic dishonesty (guilty) condition and about 37.8% of the participants in no academic dishonesty (not guilty) condition admitted their guilt. The rate of guilty plea rate under no academic dishonesty condition in Korea was not statistically different from the condition in the United States(56.4%). Furthermore, a logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine whether the substantial truth and the level of punishment influenced guilt admission. The result suggested that participants in the academic dishonesty condition was more likely to admit their guilt (p<.1). In other words, participants under academic dishonesty condition were more likely to admit their guilt. The study indirectly illustrated that innocent participants can admit their guilt. Because the study is based on an academic dishonesty situation, which generated much low stress than in an actual criminal cases, it is expected that higher number of innocent suspects are more likely to admit their guilt in actual plea bargaining circumstances. This empirical research study offers insights to advantages and disadvantages of adopting plea bargaining procedures, related legal issues, as well as the possibility of conviction of innocent suspect. Implications for the research study are also discussed.

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