KOR-Murder-rape carries a heavier sentence than general murder, making it highly significant
-Supplementary investigation also revealed intentional concealment and abetment by the police
-Ruling party's Criminal Procedure Act amendment? Deletes prosecutors' investigative power itself
-As an alternative, strengthens the right to request supplementary investigation and creates mandatory provisions
-Allowing requests to replace judicial police officers in case of non-compliance
-However, from the police's perspective, there are only obligations and no incentives
-No reason to follow supplementary investigation requests... Pro forma investigations expected
-In the future, it will become difficult for people without money to get perpetrators prosecuted
-Prosecution's atmosphere? 'Let's see how it goes, do as you wish'
-Prosecutors won't need to be proactive, so their work-life balance will improve
-Ministry of Justice will also find it hard to protest as the Prime Minister said they would follow the party
■ Broadcast: SBS Kim Tae-hyun's Political Show (FM 103.5 MHz 7:00 – 9:00)
■ Date: Friday, July 10, 2026
■ Host: Attorney Kim Tae-hyun
■ Guest: Lim Chan-jong, SBS Legal Correspondent
[Kim Tae-hyun]: A reporter's notebook unraveled by a legal correspondent roaming Yeouido and Seocho-dong. The Man Who Lives with the Law, 'Beopsanam.' Today, we are joined by SBS Legal Correspondent Lim Chan-jong. Hello.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Hello.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: As expected, the topic prepared for today is the hottest issue, the right to request supplementary investigation. Right?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Exactly.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: I thought this issue had died down, but because of the Jang Yoon-ki case, people are starting to say, "See? This is why we need the right to request supplementary investigation." However, the ruling party proposed an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act yesterday (July 9).
[Lim Chan-jong]: Yes.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: First of all, Minister of Justice Jung Sung-ho stated regarding the Jang Yoon-ki case, "There were as many as 11 items that underwent supplementary investigation."
[Lim Chan-jong]: Yes.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Why is the need for the prosecution's right to request supplementary investigation being brought up again following this case?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Well, first, if I point out the parts of this case that are not widely known, the talk about supplementary investigation is coming up from two aspects, not just one. First, to briefly explain the Jang Yoon-ki case, though many people might already know about it...
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: On May 5, a man named Jang Yoon-ki, who lives in Gwangju, murdered a female high school student whom he did not know at all. The police initially investigated this, and since he was a murderer, they naturally detained him. However, they forwarded the case to the prosecution under charges of simple murder. After detaining and investigating him for ten days, they concluded he was a murderer, but it was simple murder, and forwarded the case. But when the prosecution conducted additional investigation, supplemented the evidence, and secured more proof, they found that this was not simple murder, but rape-murder under Article 9, Paragraph 1 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, and indicted him on much heavier charges.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: As an attorney, you know this well, but when ordinary people hear this, they might think, "Murder is already a heavy crime, so what's the big difference?" But there is a huge difference.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: The statutory penalty?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Yes. Because the statutory penalty for murder is death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for five years or more. On the other hand, rape-murder under the Act on Special Cases Concerning Sexual Crimes carries only death or life imprisonment. So, even with discretionary mitigation by a judge—considering discretionary mitigation—of course, it's rare for murder cases to be handled this way, but simple murder can theoretically receive a suspended sentence of up to two years and six months. But for rape-murder, even if life imprisonment is discretionarily mitigated, it still leads to a prison term of ten years or more. So, there is an immense difference.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: First, the key point here is that through the prosecution's supplementary investigation, they secured various additional pieces of evidence. To apply the charge of rape-murder, it is very important to determine whether there was intent for a sexual crime. Revealing that and applying a heavier charge is highly significant.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Second, then why didn't the police do it? Was it simply a lack of capability? While looking into this during the supplementary investigation, they checked things like the phone of Jang Yoon-ki's father and found recorded files of phone calls with the police. In those recordings, the police were giving him various pieces of information, and it also showed that the suspect's father destroyed and damaged evidence because of that.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Like getting rid of the real doll, getting rid of the cable ties, and things like that?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Yes. So ultimately, the police investigation team did not just make a simple mistake; they intentionally omitted or concealed evidence, and the prosecution's supplementary investigation revealed circumstances showing that they also abetted the suspect's father in destroying evidence.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: So to summarize, in this Jang Yoon-ki case, one aspect is that a lighter charge was about to be applied, but through supplementary investigation, a heavier charge was applied.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Second, during that process, circumstances where the police destroyed or concealed related evidence, or abetted the suspect's family in destroying it, were revealed through the supplementary investigation. Because of these two significant aspects, the talk about supplementary investigation is coming up again in relation to this case.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: But under the Criminal Procedure Act amendment currently proposed by the ruling party, this case would have just ended with simple murder, right?
[Lim Chan-jong]: To be completely fair, what the ruling party is saying is that it would still be possible through a request for supplementary investigation. But actually, before that, what I want to say is...
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Let's look at that first. Regarding the Criminal Procedure Act the ruling party is talking about, yesterday (July 9), the Democratic Party's Criminal Procedure Act Amendment Task Force proposed a bill to completely abolish this right to conduct supplementary investigations. It was widely covered in this morning's (July 10) daily newspapers. Four lawmakers submitted it to the National Assembly.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Yes.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: What are the specific details of this?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Specifically, a press release was issued yesterday (July 9) along with the proposal. Perhaps due to the recent Jang Yoon-ki case, the main focus regarding the alternative to the worrisome abolition of supplementary investigations is ultimately to strengthen the right to request supplementary investigations.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: So the main point, as you all know, is that the right to conduct supplementary investigations was based on the general investigative power clause of prosecutors. They plan to completely delete Article 196 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which is the very clause that defines prosecutors' investigative power.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: So they are completely removing this clause on prosecutors' investigative power in the Criminal Procedure Act, which states that when a prosecutor believes there is suspicion of a crime, they shall investigate the offender, the facts of the crime, and the evidence?
[Lim Chan-jong]: That's right.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Then they cannot conduct investigations at all.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Right, only judicial police officers will conduct investigations.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Because they won't have the authority.
[Lim Chan-jong]: So it disappears entirely. Until now, supplementary investigations were conducted based on this clause, though they couldn't initiate investigations except for certain crimes. Instead of direct investigation, the prosecution initiated direct investigations or conducted supplementary investigations within the scope of recognized identity through auxiliary clauses. But they are completely eliminating the fundamental clause that serves as the basis. Therefore, prosecutors will not be able to investigate at all, nor will they be able to conduct supplementary investigations.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: But instead, as an alternative, they added measures to strengthen the monitoring and checking of investigative agencies. The core of this is strengthening the authority to request supplementary investigations. Looking at a few of the added details: until now, there was a clause to the effect that judicial police officers must comply with a request for supplementary investigation unless there is a "justifiable reason." However, they deleted the phrase "justifiable reason" from this part. In short, once a request for supplementary investigation is made, they must comply. That is how they plan to make it.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: So if a prosecutor looks at it and says, "Go find the real doll, go find the cable ties," they have to find them. To put it very simply using this Jang Yoon-ki case as an example...
[Lim Chan-jong]: But would the prosecution even know if there was a real doll? If there is no mention of a real doll in the investigation records sent by the police, or even if there is, if it was mentioned very briefly... Actually, what became an issue this time too was that the police did conduct a DNA test on the real doll. But they didn't send it to the prosecution. Then, after the incident blew up and became a big issue, they belatedly sent it, saying, "Oh, we forgot."
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: But in such a situation—and this is jumping ahead a bit—unless the prosecutor is God, it's not even in the records. Since they can't investigate directly, how could they? It's hard for them to say, "Now that I think about it, didn't he perhaps have a real doll?" and ask for it. Anyway, there is that aspect.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: First of all, looking further into what the Democratic Party proposed this time, they deleted the grounds for judicial police officers to refuse requests for supplementary investigations.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Also, while there was no specific processing period for supplementary investigations before, they plan to insert a clause stating that, in principle, it must be processed within one month, and even with an extension, it must be completed and reported within two months.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Furthermore, currently, if a request for supplementary investigation is not fulfilled without a justifiable reason, prosecutors can only request disciplinary action. But they will allow prosecutors to request the replacement of the judicial police officer. In addition, if there are more problems—if the officer in charge absolutely cannot comply with the request or if the supplementary investigation is deemed inappropriate—the prosecutor can designate another police officer or another police station to request the supplementary investigation. They added these details.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: So they added a lot of things, but fundamentally, since prosecutors cannot investigate, they can only look at the records and think something seems off. If they ask the police to do more and the police don't actually move as the prosecutor wants, there's no way around it, right? Because the prosecutor cannot do it themselves.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Well, what they are doing here is making it a mandatory clause, meaning an obligation is effectively imposed, and there is a one-month limit, so there is a clause saying it must be done within one month.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: But they have to execute it well, not just go through the motions.
[Lim Chan-jong]: To share my thoughts a bit more, when designing a system, shouldn't there ultimately be incentives and penalties? For example, if a system isn't working well, simply telling someone by law, "Do this from now on," doesn't work. For instance, if bread supply is short, does it work to say, "If you don't supply bread within a month from now, you will be punished," or to just impose an obligation to supply bread? Ultimately, you have to give the bread suppliers an incentive to supply bread, and then apply penalties based on that incentive for the system to run. But in the end, from the police's perspective, what is highly likely to happen is that they will do it because the law says they have to. However, even if they do it pro forma, there is no law for prosecutors to sanction them for that.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Exactly. If they say, "We looked for it but couldn't find it," and the prosecutor asks, "What did you do?" and they reply, "But it's not there," the result is the same.
[Lim Chan-jong]: And regarding the "within one month" limit, we will have to see what kind of penalties will be given through future enforcement decrees if it's not done within a month. But even so, there will inevitably be disputes over whether they actually did it within a month, whether they practically didn't do it, or whether it can be considered done.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yesterday (July 9), we interviewed Prosecutor Jung Ah-reum, who investigated the Hae-deun case. Regarding the right to request supplementary investigation, Prosecutor Jung said: "In detention cases, the detention period is set to 10 days for the police and a maximum of 20 days for the prosecution. If the prosecution investigates directly, they will produce results within the 20-day detention period. But if they request a supplementary investigation, all the time is wasted while the case goes back and forth to the police, and there are cases where it cannot be processed within the detention period."
[Lim Chan-jong]: To prepare for such cases, the Democratic Party's proposal also states that in cases where the statute of limitations is nearing or during such detention periods, supplementary investigations can be requested much faster and shorter than one month. But just because the law says it must be done doesn't mean it will actually happen.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Right.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Let me just explain briefly. The reason I mention incentives and penalties is that from the police's perspective, even with various clauses on requesting supplementary investigations, there are too many ways to bypass them. And they don't bypass them out of malice; it's just that the obligations are imposed under conditions that are realistically difficult to meet. Ultimately, the core issue for the police is that they don't have much reason to comply with the prosecutor's request for supplementary investigation. From the police's perspective, no incentive is given for complying with the request.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: I see. Anyway, perhaps because of the Jang Yoon-ki case, some evaluate that the Democratic Party seems to have paid more attention to supplementary measures than before. Do you agree, Reporter Lim?
[Lim Chan-jong]: As you just said, seeing that these things, which were rarely in the previous Democratic Party TF proposals, have been strengthened, it seems true that the Jang Yoon-ki case had an impact. And when the Jang Yoon-ki case occurred, what Democratic Party lawmakers mostly said was that this could be solved by strengthening the right to request supplementary investigations. So, as a result, this seems to be the outcome.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Yes.
[Lim Chan-jong]: But as I keep saying, unless they provide incentives for the police to follow the request for supplementary investigation or give them a reason, telling them to do it within a month, saying they must do it, or requesting disciplinary action if they don't, will not make it work well.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: To put it simply, they can just sit on it and that's it, right?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Exactly. But for example, if there were incentives like: if the police forward a case and the prosecutor drops the charges, the police officer suffers a disadvantage in their personnel evaluation. In other words, if they forward a case with an indictment opinion but the prosecutor decides not to indict, they get a disadvantage. Or conversely—though this assumes forwarding full authority—if the prosecutor changes the conclusion of a case they forwarded with a non-indictment opinion, they face a disadvantage. Then, even if no one imposes an obligation, the police would naturally consult before forwarding, or comply if the prosecutor asks for this or that. Unless they institutionally design such practical incentives for the police to respond to requests for supplementary investigations, many people predict that this will honestly be difficult to work.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: What is the atmosphere inside the prosecution right now?
[Lim Chan-jong]: Honestly, because the Democratic Party TF proposal came out late yesterday (July 9) afternoon, it's not easy to confirm the specific atmosphere regarding this proposal right now. However, ultimately, if supplementary investigations disappear, to be honest, the criminal justice process will face huge problems. Simply put, people without money, poor people, will find it extremely difficult to have perpetrators punished or prosecuted even if they become victims of a crime. This is a common view shared not only by the prosecution but also by the majority of legal professionals handling criminal cases. But as I have said here several times, as public servants administering this criminal justice process, we will voice our opinion that this is problematic, but we don't want to be misunderstood as trying to hold onto great power by keeping supplementary investigations. So, the majority opinion is actually, "Go ahead and do as you wish once, and we'd rather not request it either."
[Kim Tae-hyun]: So in terms of work-life balance, they are saying, "It's better for us not to have it," something like that.
[Lim Chan-jong]: That's exactly it. Because as I mentioned earlier about incentives, if it changes like this, prosecutors won't have any incentive even if they diligently request investigations. Right now, it's their job because they are a party involved in the process and have authority related to investigations under the Criminal Procedure Act.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Even though it's their job...
[Lim Chan-jong]: Once it is completely separated from investigation, if they think they won't get a guilty verdict after indictment based on the investigation, they will think differently. Right now, they are working hard to request supplementary investigations, but honestly, if the system is designed that way, humans will think, "It's not my job." Then they might just decide not to indict. If that happens, prosecutors' work-life balance will actually go way up.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: I see. Last question. Minister of Justice Jung Sung-ho also stated in public yesterday (July 9), "It is difficult to resolve all side effects simply by strengthening the right to request supplementary investigations." What is the actual atmosphere in the government, specifically the Ministry of Justice?
[Lim Chan-jong]: The atmosphere in the Ministry of Justice is exactly what Minister Jung Sung-ho just said. As many people know, Minister Jung Sung-ho himself has repeatedly expressed the opinion that the right to conduct supplementary investigations is necessary, at least in a limited capacity. The reason he cannot speak so strongly about it now is that while it is his and the Ministry's position, the Prime Minister has already stated on behalf of the government that they will follow the party's proposal. Therefore, it is difficult for the Ministry of Justice to strongly protest beyond that official stance.
[Kim Tae-hyun]: Understood. We will stop here today. That was SBS Legal Correspondent Lim Chan-jong. Thank you.
[Lim Chan-jong]: Thank you.
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※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
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