Supreme Court Decision 2004Do3161

Defendant molested and videotaped a four-year-old girl and three-year-old girl. The court below, based on videotapes and victims’ testimony, rendered a guilty verdict. Defendant appealed. The main issues were (1) the admissibility of a videotape that contained conversations between a private person and another person other than a defendant and recorded by a private person and (2) the criteria for determining whether young children's testimony is admissible. As to the first issue, the Court decided that unless a defendant agreed to admit a videotape as evidence, the statement in the videotape was admissible only if (1) the videotape was original, or a photocopy of an original that was not artificially edited and (2) each of the statements on the videotape were acknowledged as the same as that made by the original statement maker by his/her testimony at a preparatory hearing or during a public trial according to Article 313(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act. Based on testimonies, the Court acknowledged each statement on the videotape as the same as that made by the original stator at a preparatory hearing and decided that the videotape was admissible as evidence. As to the second issue, the Court decided that the admissibility of young child's testimony should be decided not only by age, but also by his or her individual and specific intellectual level, after examining the contents of the testimony and the child’s attitudes during the testimony and determining whether facts of past experiences lie within the scope of things that can be understood or judged by the child. Accordingly, the Court found the judgment below of "guilt" based on the evidence was appropriate and found no violation of the evidence rules in confirming the facts and the legal principles as to the credibility of the young children's testimony or failure to conduct a complete review. The Court dismissed the appeal.

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