Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Victim statement credibility and the limits of free evaluation
Supreme Court, Mar. 11, 2021, 2020Do15259 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 강제추행
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
In a criminal case, how far does the freedom of evaluation limit a court, may a victim's statement be rejected because it is slightly inconsistent on minor matters, and how should a court hearing a sexual assault or harassment case assess the probative force of the victim's account?
Holding
A court's finding of fact rests on its free evaluation, but that evaluation must accord with the laws of logic and experience, and rejecting evidence that is probative on the strength of doubts that have no rational basis exceeds the limits of free evaluation. A victim's or similar witness's statement may not be lightly cast aside without special reason merely because it is slightly inconsistent on minor matters, so long as its main parts are consistent, nothing in it is irrational or self-contradicting, and no motive or reason to give false testimony unfavourable to the defendant is clearly shown. In sexual assault and harassment cases, the victim's special circumstances must be fully considered, and rejecting the account lightly without doing so is not evidence assessment under the laws of logic and experience.
Points at issue, verbatim
법원이 성폭행이나 성희롱 사건의 심리를 할 때 유의하여야 할 사항 및 성폭행 등의 피해자 진술의 증명력을 판단하는 방법
Unofficial English translation
Matters to which courts must pay attention when trying cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment, and the method of assessing the probative value of statements by victims of sexual assault and the like
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 의정부지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Uijeongbu District Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
그 밖의 사소한 사항에 관한 진술에 다소 일관성이 없다는 등의 사정만으로 그 진술의 신빙성을 특별한 이유 없이 함부로 배척해서는 아니 된다
Unofficial English translation
the credibility of the statement must not be arbitrarily rejected without special reason merely because of circumstances such as some inconsistency in the statements on other minor matters
Factors
- 형사재판에 있어서 자유심증주의의 한계
- 피해자가 사소한 사항에 관한 진술에 다소 일관성이 없는 경우, 피해자 진술의 신빙성을 판단함에 있어서 고려하여야 할 점
- 법원이 성폭행이나 성희롱 사건의 심리를 할 때 유의하여야 할 사항 및 성폭행 등의 피해자 진술의 증명력을 판단하는 방법
Unofficial English translation
• Limits of the principle of free evaluation of evidence in a criminal trial
• Matters to be considered in assessing the credibility of a victim's statement where the victim's statements on minor matters are somewhat inconsistent
• Matters to which courts must pay attention when trying cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment, and the method of assessing the probative value of statements by victims of sexual assault and the like
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 1994. 9. 13. 선고 94도1335 판결(공1994하, 2695)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 94Do1335 decided September 13, 1994 (Gong 1994 Ha, 2695)
Decisions referred to
대법원 1994. 9. 13. 선고 94도1335 판결(공1994하, 2695), 대법원 2004. 6. 25. 선고 2004도2221 판결(공2004하, 1290), 대법원 2006. 11. 23. 선고 2006도5407 판결, 대법원 2008. 3. 14. 선고 2007도10728 판결, 대법원 2018. 4. 12. 선고 2017두74702 판결(공2018상, 909), 대법원 2018. 10. 25. 선고 2018도7709 판결(공2018하, 2294)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
What judgment did the Uijeongbu District Court, on remand, deliver on the charge in this case?
The retried case at the Uijeongbu District Court after this remand, once it finds the facts under the rules stated here, would show how they work in practice. Any amendment to Article 307 or Article 308 of the Criminal Procedure Act, or a later Supreme Court decision on the credibility of a victim's account, would require this entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 4 (form of the test).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Elements stated” vs Independent “Existing test applied”
Primary reads the holding as setting out general requirements (요건 제시), while independent reads it as applying the principles to this record (사안 적용). The opinion lays down general principles and then applies them to the facts, so either reading is possible.
형사재판에 있어서 자유심증주의의 한계Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Uijeongbu District Court, sitting on appeal, in its judgment of 22 October 2020 (2019No2507), reversed the first-instance guilty verdict and acquitted the defendant. It reasoned that the victim's statements about the act and the surrounding facts were inconsistent and grew over time, that the act as described was physically unlikely given the parties' similar heights and the construction of the sanitary pad, that the account of the open coat conflicted with CCTV footage, that the change from the left hand to the right hand was hard to accept, and that a person of such an active character would not have stayed silent for five minutes, so the victim was likely exaggerating the time and intensity. It added that the defendant's own account, that his fingers touched the victim while he was catching his falling bag strap, made mistake possible, that the victim had a motive to exaggerate, and that the defendant's candid statement was credible.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the victim had given concrete and consistent testimony from the investigation to the courtroom on the main part of the act, and that the change of the hand used was explained by the day-after excitement of the police interview and the bag's shoulder strap. The differences in position and station, and the details added in court, were matters poorly connected to the charge or open to recollection, the CCTV footage showed only the stairs, platform and the walk after leaving the train, and the claimed five minutes and intensity were the victim's subjective feeling rather than a reason to reject the whole account. It therefore held that the court below had rejected credibility on grounds that were insufficient or compatible with the facts, or on collateral matters unrelated to the charge, thereby exceeding the limits of free evaluation and misapprehending the law on probative force, and reversed and remanded the case.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the main part of the victim's statement is itself inconsistent or self-contradicting, since the rule protects statements whose main parts remain consistent.
- A case in which a motive or reason to give false testimony unfavourable to the defendant clearly appears, which the Court treated as a ground for rejection.
- A case in which the victim's account is genuinely contradicted by objective material on the record; here there was none, because the CCTV footage showed only the Hoegi station stairs and platform before boarding and the walk at Sangbong station after alighting, not the inside of the train.
Record verification notes
Separate the main part of the account from the minor details, and check each inconsistency against the objective record and the laws of experience before using it to doubt credibility. Then look for what shows the victim's special circumstances, since the Court reversed for failing to consider them, and ask what motive or reason for false testimony, if any, the file actually contains. This entry says nothing about who must prove what, so the allocation of proof in the court below will need to be read from that record.
From the official text
Points at issue
형사재판에 있어서 자유심증주의의 한계 / 피해자가 사소한 사항에 관한 진술에 다소 일관성이 없는 경우, 피해자 진술의 신빙성을 판단함에 있어서 고려하여야 할 점 / 법원이 성폭행이나 성희롱 사건의 심리를 할 때 유의하여야 할 사항 및 성폭행 등의 피해자 진술의 증명력을 판단하는 방법
Unofficial English translation
Limits of the principle of free evaluation of evidence in a criminal trial / Matters to be considered in assessing the credibility of a victim's statement where the victim's statements on minor matters are somewhat inconsistent / Matters to which courts must pay attention when trying cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment, and the method of assessing the probative value of statements by victims of sexual assault and the like
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 의정부지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Uijeongbu District Court.
Provisions referred to
형사소송법 제307조, 제308조
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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