탄핵증거로서의 증거능력과 증거조사

Impeachment means the act of challenging the accuracy or authenticity of evidence. As compared with incriminating evidence tending to establish guilt, impeachment evidence is used to undermine a witness's credibility. So an out-of-court statement offered for impeachment purposes might be admissible to impeach, but not as substantive evidence of the truth of the matter stated. According to the Criminal Procedure Act in Korea, a document or a statement otherwise inadmissible as substantive evidence under the provisions of hearsay rule is admissible, if it is produced to challenge the reliability of a statement of a defendant or a witness in a preparatory hearing or a trial(Article 318-2 Paragraph 1). But a video-recorded product that contains a statement of a defendant or a person other than the defendant may be replayed to the defendant or such person for viewing in a preparatory hearing or a trial, only when it is deemed necessary to refresh his recollection concerning a matter of which the defendant or the person has now insufficient recollection in testifying(Article 318-2 Paragraph 2). And the Regulation on Criminal Procedure provides that either party may examine on necessary matters for the purpose of impeaching the value of testimony during main or cross-examination, and the impeaching examination shall be made with respect to the credibility of testimony such as the experience and memory of a witness, and the accuracy of his expression, and the reliability of a witness such as the interests, prejudice, presupposition of the witness, while such examination that injures the reputation of a witness shall not be made(Article 77). The statement of the defendant in the court may be impeached by the prosecutor. A witness's credibility may be rehabilitated after impeachment. There are diverse methods of impeachment such as bias, sensory and mental defects, untruthful character, prior inconsistent statements, specific contradiction. The examination of impeachment evidence may not be strict, but is essential to fact-finding for verdict.