Court: "Measurement Taken 50 Minutes After Driving Ended... Incoherent Statements Not Credible"
A man in his 50s who was prosecuted for driving while intoxicated in broad daylight was acquitted. The court judged that it was difficult to recognize the charge of drunk driving, considering that the alcohol test was conducted about 50 minutes after he had stopped driving, even though drunk driving was suspected.
Yonhap News reported on the 6th that the Criminal Division 2 of Chuncheon District Court (Chief Judge Kim Seong-rae) acquitted Mr. A, who was indicted for drunk driving under the Road Traffic Act, as in the original trial.
Mr. A is accused of driving for about 5 minutes in Jeongseon, Gangwon, in February 2023 with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.306%. The investigative agency indicted him for drunk driving, citing the fact that his vehicle was parked messily at his home at the time and that Mr. A spoke incoherently and stated, "I did not drink more at home."
Mr. A claimed innocence, stating that the reason for the messy parking was that he deliberately parked messily to make it difficult for a neighbor, with whom he usually had a bad relationship, to exit their car, and that he hurriedly drank alcohol immediately after returning home to use intoxication as an excuse not to move the car.
The Chuncheon District Court Yeongwol Branch, which handled the first trial, judged that the alcohol measurement taken about 50 minutes after the driving ended could not serve as direct evidence to support that drunk driving occurred.
Furthermore, since Mr. A made statements in a heavily intoxicated state on the day of the incident, the court found it difficult to acknowledge their credibility. The fact that Mr. A’s coworkers testified that "they had never seen the defendant intoxicated during working hours" was also used as a basis for the not guilty verdict.
The court stated, "Although the defendant’s claims and behavior are inappropriate in terms of social norms and good morals, they cannot be seen as contradictory or unusual in themselves," and acquitted him.
The appellate court also dismissed the prosecution’s appeal, stating, "It is difficult to recognize that the defendant’s statements at the time were made in a credible state or that they are credible, and there is no evidence to acknowledge the fact that he drank alcohol, so the defendant’s claims cannot be easily rejected."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
