절반의 소외-형사공판사건 변호인 선임률의 현황과 대책-

According to the Constitution of Korea, the accused is entitled to receive the assistance of counsel for his/her defense in the course of trial proceedings as well as upon arrest or detention. Despite the recent and rapid increase of the number of lawyers, however, the rate of lawyer representation in criminal trial cases was 49% in 2009, and had been at almost the same level for about thirty years since the 1980s. The only salient change was the recent and rapid increase of the rate of court­assigned counsels, which has taken the place of shrinking rate of private attorneys. In other words, half of the accused are still taking up pro se defense in criminal courts. This rate has been proved to be much higher than that of United States or Japan. The statutory rules about compulsory representation in Korean Criminal Procedure Act seem to be one of the main sources of this stagnation of the lawyer representation rate. Only for those charged with an offense punishable by death penalty, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for a minimum of three years, a defense counsel is assigned by the court ex officio, as long as no defense counsel has been appointed by the accused. Conclusively, the author suggested to lower the barrier of compulsory representation down to those punishable by imprisonment for a maximum of three years. Also suggested is the introduction of public defender system which is widespread in United States, especially those systems maintained by local governments.