국민참여재판의 평/판결 불일치 원인의 탐색 : 2018년부터 2022년에 선고된 사건에 대한 검토

In the Korean jury system, jury verdicts do not bind the court. This allows double judgment on the same criminal case. The current study collected and systematically analyzed 32 cases that were tried through lay-participation trials over the past five years to develop recipes to reduce verdict/ruling discrepancies. To achieve the goal, the author identified the characteristics of the cases and analyzed the main issues and the basis for it by content analysis. As a result, it was found that the verdict/ruling discrepant cases included a high proportion of miscellaneous crimes (assault, obstruction of justice, obstruction of business, bribery, arson, etc.) and most of the cases were the jury rendered not guilty verdict and the court found guilty. A slightly higher percentage of verdict/ruling discrepant cases had a majority jury verdict than the percentage of cases with a majority verdict in all lay-participation trials. The main issues in verdict/ruling discrepant cases were whether the defendant committed a crime and whether the defendant had the intent to commit a crime or knowledge about the criminality. The most frequent courts' bases on the issues were judgments about the credibility of testimony and inferences of intent based on common sense about the people involved in the case. The issues and the rationale behind them were explored along with the pattern of verdict/ruling disagreement and whether the jury verdict was unanimous. The investigation suggests that differences in judgment between the jury and the court may stem from differences in the precision of the application of the law, the weighing of evidence or issues, and judgments about the internal attributes or state of mind of others. In the discussion, several measures that can be taken to reduce verdict/ruling discrepancies were suggested based on these findings.