Interview with Yun Sung-yeo, who served time for a crime committed by Lee Chun-jae

Revised Criminal Procedure Act abolishes prosecutorial investigations

'A return to the era when police power went unchecked'

Yun Sung-yeo smiles and receives a bouquet of flowers outside the Suwon District Court on Dec. 17, 2020, after being acquitted at a retrial in the eighth Hwaseong serial murder case linked to Lee Chun-jae. [Yonhap]
Yun Sung-yeo smiles and receives a bouquet of flowers outside the Suwon District Court on Dec. 17, 2020, after being acquitted at a retrial in the eighth Hwaseong serial murder case linked to Lee Chun-jae. [Yonhap]

Yun Sung-yeo, who spent 20 years in prison after police tortured a false confession out of him and wrongfully convicted him in place of Hwaseong serial killer Lee Chun-jae, has warned that revisions to the Criminal Procedure Act abolishing prosecutors' direct investigative powers — including supplementary investigations — could destroy innocent lives. "A single wrong judgment can ruin a person's entire life," Yun said, urging police to exercise greater care now that they hold sole investigative authority. "I want to ask the police, who now have full control over investigations, to pause and look back just one more time."

In a phone interview Friday, Yun shared his views on the overhaul of the criminal justice system represented by the revised act. Having suffered gravely from coercive and shoddy police work in the past, he said the changes would only increase the number of wrongful convictions. "If prosecutors can no longer reinvestigate cases handled by police, the number of people wrongfully accused will grow, not shrink," he said.

"As the check provided by prosecutors weakens, all we can do now is hope that police conduct proper investigations," he said. "I only hope that no more innocent people suffer."

In 1988, police investigating the eighth in the Hwaseong serial murder series tortured Yun into a false confession. The police report stated that Yun had scaled a 170-meter wall to break into a home and commit the crime. Yun has limited use of one leg due to complications from polio.

Prosecutors and the court also failed to filter out the fabricated police records. Yun ultimately served 20 years before being released on parole as a model prisoner. More than 30 years later, a reinvestigation launched in 2019 — after the real killer, Lee Chun-jae, confessed to the crimes — finally cleared Yun's name. In a 2020 retrial, the court acknowledged the police's past abuse and acquitted him.

Police findings shape indictments and trials alike

'A prosecutor who can't investigate can't verify police work'

Yun said that relying solely on police records and a prosecutor's power to request supplementary investigations makes it nearly impossible to establish the facts accurately, and that wrongful cases are inevitable as a result. Under the revised Criminal Procedure Act, prosecutors are barred from conducting any investigation themselves and may only review case files submitted by police and request that police conduct additional inquiries.

Recalling the time he was convicted of the eighth Hwaseong murder and sentenced to life in prison, Yun said, "Prosecutors indicted based on what police had investigated, and the court accepted it. It was an era when whatever police investigated was the end of the matter."

"Eliminating prosecutors' supplementary investigations means going back to that time," he said. "Even if a prosecutor spots a problem in the police's case file, they've been stripped of the power to reinvestigate. If police piece together records to fit a narrative, how can anyone verify it?"

"From the perspective of someone directly involved in a case, a prosecutor without investigative authority is a prosecutor in name only," Yun said. He also questioned the value of prosecutors' limited power to interview parties to a case for fact-finding purposes. "Even if you talk to a prosecutor, what can they actually uncover?" he said.

"If prosecutors decide whether to indict — and the subsequent trial — based solely on what police investigated, police influence becomes far too great," he added.

'New Criminal Procedure Act only benefits politicians'

Retrial lawyer also flags need to preserve supplementary investigations

Yun said he worried that while blatant police misconduct may be less common, it could now take subtler forms. "Looking at the Jang Yun-gi case, deliberate investigative negligence by police still happens, and the victims are ordinary people," he said. "Many officers from the era when suspects were beaten during interrogations are still on the force."

On the planned abolition of the Prosecution Service and the implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Act, both scheduled for October, Yun said it felt like "a return to the Liberal Party era, when prosecutors were weak and police power was overwhelming." He said, "When police held the power, it was ordinary, powerless people who suffered. When prosecutors held the power, it was politicians who faced hardship." The new law, he said, "only benefits those in power."

Park Jun-young, the lawyer who handled Yun's retrial, has also pointed to the limits of a system that relies only on requests for supplementary investigations. In a post on social media in July, Park said, "Reviewing investigation records alone makes it difficult to uncover circumstances not captured in the file or information that has been concealed." He added that if prosecutors decide whether to indict based solely on records compiled by investigators, "indictments driven by written records could deepen, with prosecutors never directly verifying the substance of a case."

Park said supplementary investigations by prosecutors remain necessary. "No matter how capable and diligent an investigative agency may be, investigations are ultimately carried out by people, and people make mistakes or overlook things," he said. "The point is to acknowledge that possibility and put in place a procedure to re-examine and correct when needed."


arin@heraldcorp.com