Probation but Drunk Driving Again... Real Sentence Only After 5th Offense

Three Fines for Past Drunk Driving
Another Drunk Driving Despite Ongoing Trial Since December Last Year

A driver who was sentenced to prison for drunk driving and was on probation was ultimately imprisoned after driving a car while heavily intoxicated. He was sentenced to actual imprisonment only after being caught for the fifth time for drunk driving.

According to the legal community on the 25th, Judge Kim Dong-jin of the Criminal Division 4 at Seoul Southern District Court sentenced Kim Mo (40) to 10 months in prison on charges of drunk driving and driving without a license under the Road Traffic Act, and assaulting a driver under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes.

Kim was indicted for driving without a license while intoxicated for about 15 minutes covering approximately 10 km from Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province to Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, around 11 p.m. on July 18 last year. At that time, Kim’s blood alcohol concentration was 0.182%, exceeding the license cancellation standard of 0.08%.

The problem was that this incident occurred just over two months after Kim’s sentence of one year in prison with a two-year probation for drunk driving was finalized. Moreover, he had previously received three fines for drunk driving.

After being indicted in December last year, he was additionally charged for assaulting another driver while driving under a canceled license. On January 24 this year, at around 1:30 a.m., he drove about 200 meters without a license in Bucheon, and later that day at around 9 p.m., he was accused of hitting and strangling with a seatbelt the head of Hwang Mo (30), his partner, who was driving a passenger car, while sitting in the back seat.

Initially, Kim was prosecuted without detention, but he failed to appear in court three consecutive times, including the first trial in January this year. After committing two more offenses while a summons was issued, he was additionally indicted and detained last month.

The court stated, "Despite being on probation after three confirmed guilty verdicts with fines for drunk driving, he committed the offenses again. Even after the trial began, he committed driver assault and driving without a license again, showing a severe lack of legal compliance awareness, making a prison sentence unavoidable."