Episode 53

"This case isn't just about determining guilt or innocence. That's just one of the countless issues that are intertwined within this problem."

"......Then what is it?"

Until now, the format of the moot court competition cases had been the same as the first preliminary match.

They would announce the charges beforehand, and then ask whether or not those charges were valid.

If the prosecution proved the defendant's guilt, they won, and if they revealed that the evidence wasn't enough to prove guilt, the defense side won.

It was an intuitive and simple rule.

But this time, it wasn't that simple.

"They didn't give us any, did they? The charges."

"Ah. That's true."

"This is about directly weighing the severity of the crime, in other words... it's about deciding from the beginning what should be punished, and to what extent."

For example, let's say there's a guy who killed someone while committing robbery.

If this guy intentionally killed the person, not only taking their money and possessions, then he would be punished for robbery-murder.

On the other hand, if he committed robbery but didn't intend to kill, and the victim died because they were accidentally hit by his arm that he had swung to scare them, then the story would be different.

In this case, he would be punished for robbery resulting in death.

The severity of the crime and the corresponding punishment are different between the two.

Naturally, the content that has to be proven is also different between intent and negligence.

"From the defense's perspective, the best outcome is to get a not guilty verdict. If that's impossible, then they have to try to get them punished for a crime that has a lighter sentence."

If that was the defense's condition for victory, then the prosecution's condition for victory would naturally be the opposite.

They had to construct their arguments so that the defendant would be punished with the heaviest sentence possible, and they had to avoid a not guilty verdict at all costs.

"But it's not like just making it heavy or light is the right answer."

First of all, their argument had to be provable based on the presented materials and evidence, meaning that it had to 'make sense'.

They had to weigh the possibility of persuasion and the severity of the crime based on their position and find the most reasonable compromise.

"Then... it's the most similar to the criminal problems from the second evaluation in the free spirit state."

"That's right. Back then, they also told the prosecutors to make their arguments as heavy as possible, and the defense to make them as light as possible."

When a case was structured in this format, it was overwhelmingly advantageous to choose the defense side.

The prosecutor only had one chance to choose the charges that would be applied, but the defense could first claim innocence and then continue to argue that even if they were guilty, they should be punished for a crime with a lighter sentence.

In addition, since the burden of proof in a criminal trial was basically on the prosecution, there were also relatively more opportunities to find fault with the evidence.

Of course, Jang Yong-hwan, who had created the problem, was well aware of this.

That was why he was saying that he would comprehensively evaluate all of the processes of developing the arguments, finding fault, and defending, and choose the team that had done 'better' overall.

"In the end, even if we come to a conclusion that's close to what Jang Yong-hwan is thinking, we could still lose if we force things or go around in circles without finding the right path."

"It's difficult..."

It wasn't intuitive.

If they were guilty, the prosecutor won, and if they were innocent, the defendant won.

The structure of the preliminary matches that we had played so far was much simpler, clearer, and easier to understand.

Even so, what was the reason for changing it like this?

"What do you think it is?"

"Hmm..."

My teammates' sparkling eyes were directed at me.

It was as if they had an infinite amount of trust in me, as I had always found amazing answers in these kinds of situations.

I nodded my head energetically at them.

"I don't know."

"Huh?"

"No, am I a god? If I could read the professor's mind so easily, I would be sitting in that chair, not sitting next to you guys."

I pointed to the judge's seat where Jang Yong-hwan was sitting and then to our seats in turn.

I was just a test taker who had solved more problems than others, and that was why I was a bit better at using my brain and had a lot of know-how.

If I didn't know, then I didn't know.

"However... I do know how this case was created."

"I think I know too. Isn't it a mix of the 'Boramae Hospital' case and the 'Grandma Kim' case?"

"You've nailed it."

The Boramae Hospital case was a case where a wife who had been suffering from domestic violence from her husband had separated from him, and then requested that her husband, who was unconscious and on life-sustaining treatment, be discharged, which resulted in his death.

The Grandma Kim case was a case where the family of 'Grandma Kim', who had become a vegetable due to excessive bleeding while receiving treatment for lung cancer, requested that her life-sustaining treatment be stopped.

The hospital had approved it, but Grandma Kim did not die immediately after the treatment was stopped, and instead continued to live for hundreds of days.

The fact that the patient had become a vegetable due to excessive bleeding and that the patient was elderly was similar to the Grandma Kim case.

The fact that the patient was a villain who committed domestic violence before the incident and that they died immediately after the life-sustaining treatment was stopped was similar to the Boramae Hospital case.

As expected of Han Seol, the precedent copying machine.

She had instantly seen which precedents had been used to create the problem.

"If we assume that he mixed those two cases together... then I can roughly grasp what issues we have to consider. And I can also tell which side we should choose, the prosecutor or the defendant."

"What, you had a plan after all. So, which side should we choose?"

"The prosecutor."

I declared.

"In this kind of structure, the defense side is more advantageous, right?"

"That's true. But Professor Jang Yong-hwan is definitely aware of that, and he said that he would take that into account when evaluating. And the fact that the defense is advantageous is only true structurally."

I ran my index finger over one part of the document.

"In this case, at least, it's better to be on the prosecutor's side."

* * *

On the judge's seat and the spectator's seats, the screens of both waiting rooms were being broadcast in real time.

If you thought about it, there was still plenty of time before the legal battle would begin in earnest.

After this 10-minute analysis time was over, both teams would have 2 hours and 30 minutes to read the materials, write the documents, and prepare their arguments.

Even so, there was a reason why the spectators were already so crowded.

Thanks to the screens that were being broadcast, all of the processes that the participating teams were going through, from analyzing the problems, to searching for materials, to preparing their arguments, were being revealed in detail, without missing a single second.

In other words, it was a golden opportunity to learn by watching, including the thought processes and logic of the outstanding students, and the ways they approached problems.

There was one fact that you shouldn't forget. This was Korea University Law School.

It was a group of crazy people who would give their lives to succeed through studying.

That was why there was no way that so many people would gather here just because it was a hot topic.

They were a group of people who were too heavy-footed to move for fun.

They were gathering because there was something to gain.

'Hoo.'

And it wasn't just the audience that was watching all of this.

The evaluator sitting in the judge's seat was also watching the preparation process and using it as data to help them score.

Even at this moment, Jang Yong-hwan was staring intently at the videos being broadcast from both waiting rooms with sparkling eyes.

"Hey, Min-hwan, is there anything we can help with...?"

"No."

"We're just feeling uneasy, you know? Of course, we're grateful that you're doing everything for us, but still, we're on the same team, so we need to be useful, at least a little..."

"It's okay."

In Gu Min-hwan's team, a strange scene was unfolding.

Gu Min-hwan, who was doing the work of three people, or rather, five or ten people if you compared him to ordinary students, was holding onto all of the materials and not letting them go.

He had divided the stack of documents into three piles in front of him, and he was flipping through all three at the same time, grasping the outline and jotting down notes on a memo pad.

As always, the two teammates who had become like a spare tire were just standing next to him, at a loss for what to do.

"This case record. How was it created?"

"Huh? The method of creation? Can you even know that?"

"Hmm."

Gu Min-hwan shook his head.

"That's why you guys don't need to be here."

Right then, as if he had heard him, an answer came from the screen of the opposite waiting room.

"Isn't it a mix of the 'Boramae Hospital' case and the 'Grandma Kim' case?"

'......There's quite a difference in skill.'

Jang Yong-hwan was lost in thought.

The reason why Choi Sung-cheol had been so happy about this first-year class, calling them the golden generation, was now clear.

Even if they were in the upper ranks, the teams that were composed of these first-year students were already far exceeding the average level of the second-year students.

Han Seol was showing off her vast memory, to the point where you might wonder if there was even a single precedent that she didn't know.

That alone was amazing, but that guy named Park Yoo-seung was showing a very annoying behavior, as if he was trying to sit on the head of the person who had created the problem.

He was so annoying that it made Jang Yong-hwan's lips curl up in a smile.

'Interesting.'

Park Yoo-seung was the talent that Jang Yong-hwan had been keeping his eye on the most among this first-year class.

Since the beginning of the semester, the guy had been pinpointing issues that others couldn't see, and he had been showing off his acrobatic skills, avoiding traps that others couldn't see. Now, he had even managed to achieve first place on the midterm exams.

'What are you going to show me this time, Park Yoo-seung?'

Of course, even if Jang Yong-hwan had high expectations for these first-year students, that didn't mean that he could be sure of victory in this final match.

On the other side, there was Gu Min-hwan, a prodigy from a different dimension.

"The issues are, as follows."

"Uh, uh? Are you explaining it?"

"Just once."

Gu Min-hwan skimmed through the notes he had written and the stack of documents, and then started to recite.

"First. Whether or not euthanasia in this case can be justified constitutionally."

"Constitutionally...? Oppa, weren't we dealing with criminal law?"

"In the Grandma Kim case, there was a precedent that stated that passive euthanasia is legal under certain special conditions. If the conditions to see euthanasia as legal are satisfied in this case, then there wouldn't be a crime in the first place, so both Kim Gap-dong and Lee Eul-nam would be innocent."

"......Ah, I see!"

After that, Gu Min-hwan continued to read the notes that he had written down and pointed out the issues of the case one by one.

He had even checked which page the related parts were on.

His eyes were gleaming coldly as he picked up the documents and reviewed them.

"Wow, that guy really is crazy. He read that many documents and already extracted that many issues?"

"How can we beat an expert? He's someone who's been working in the field with criminal law."

"There's a limit to this kind of massacre."

The spectators were whispering like that.

That was how much weight Gu Min-hwan's name had among the second-year students.

But for Jang Yong-hwan, it was still an uncertain problem.

"Look at this material."

"This is... a doctor's opinion?"

"Isn't something a bit strange?"

"Uh, just a minute. Uhm... where?"

"Here, this part. I ran it through 'Free-Loading' and it gave me an error, so I looked at it again, and there's a clear difference in the sentence structure and format. It means that there's a separate original, and that someone tampered with it in the process of creating the problem."

On the opposite screen, Park Yoo-seung was picking up a document and declaring it.

"Professors aren't people who have nothing to do. They're extremely busy people. But even so, if they went to the effort of creating hundreds of pages of materials for the preliminaries, and then they went to the trouble of tampering with the content like this? It definitely means that they've hidden an issue there."

"......Now that I think about it, is it really okay to solve it like that?"

Park Yoo-seung's observation skills. His intuition. And his unique approach of reading the creator's intentions backwards was something that was not easy to deal with.

He hadn't expected him to grasp the clues like that, but in reality, Park Yoo-seung had been fairly accurate in smelling the trail.

'That report... I guess I made a small mistake while editing it.'

Actually, it wasn't really a mistake.

The sentences that doctors used and the sentences that lawyers used were fundamentally different, so it wasn't strange that there were traces of him tampering with it.

Rather, it was Park Yoo-seung who was using a 'trick' to find hints there, which made him a truly strange guy.

-Beep. Beep. Beep.

While he was thinking that, the stopwatch that he had put in his pocket rang sharply. It meant that the time was up.

"Time's up."

Finally, the curtain of the stage was about to rise.

"Both teams, please gather in the courtroom and state the positions that you wish to take."