School killer submits 27 'letters of remorse' while in custody
Myeong Jae-wan, the former elementary school teacher accused of murdering a 7-year-old student at her school on Feb. 10, has sent multiple letters of remorse and apology to the legal authorities ahead of her first court hearing Monday.
It was reported that, as of Friday, the 48-year-old sent 27 letters to the court since hiring a lawyer on April 11. She also submitted a professional psychiatric evaluation of herself, leading to speculation that she would try claim diminished responsibility for the crime.
In the hearing Monday morning at the Daejeon District Court, Myeong's lawyer requested a psychiatric evaluation of his client to the court, saying there was a need to determine how much her mental state had been a factor in the crime. She has admitted to all charges.
Article 10 of the Criminal Act absolves the legal liability of those who are unable to control their actions due to mental illness. It has been found that the defendant had been treated for depression since up to eight years before the murder, and had taken six months' leave for mental health reasons on Dec. 9, but returned to work early on Dec. 30.
Police investigators have categorized Myeong's crime as being of "abnormal motive" defined as an offense without clear or conventional motives.
But prosecutors do not believe that her crime is directly related to her mental state or her medical history.
Myeong had searched online for information related to murder before commiting the crime and hid the murder weapon beforehand, leading to the prosecution believing that it was a premediated attack.
The victim, Kim Ha-neul, was a first-grader of an elementary school in Daejeon. She was lured by the defendant and attacked inside the school, dying despite receiving medical treatment at a nearby hospital.
Can 'I'm sorry' lead to leniency?
Submitting letters of remorse to court is a strategy opted by several people facing conviction, in a bid to reduce their sentences as much as possible.
Trot singer Kim Ho-joong, whose two-year, six-month prison term for drunk driving was confirmed in May, reportedly submitted 100 letters to the appellate court in the month of February alone before the sentencing hearing.
Genuine remorse by a defendant is cited as a general sentencing factor by the Sentencing Commission under the Supreme Court, which offers non-binding guidelines to judges in Korea. According to its definition, when evaluating remorse, courts should consider how the defendant came to admit their crime, and the efforts they made to repair the damage they inflicted and to ensure they would not commit similar crimes in the future.
As such, submitting such letters itself is not a sentencing factor, but the court can give a lighter sentence based on its assessment of how remorseful the defendant is.
According to Lawyer Cheon Chan-hee's column on law service platform Law Talk, whether or not a letter of remorse actually reduces sentence is largely based on who the judge is.
"Some judges consider (letter of remorse) while sentencing, while others more consider whether or not (the defendant) had reached a settlement with the victim and compensated for the damage. How much a letter of remorse affects the sentence differs depending on the judge," he wrote.
Recent data indicates that fewer judges are deciding to mitigate sentences because of letters of apology from the defendant.
In 2022, there were 187 rulings that reduced sentences for "serious remorse" by the defendant, according to October data by the Sentencing Commission submitted to Rep. Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party of Korea.
That was 4.1 percent of all rulings in the year, and marked a drastic decrease from the 1,265 of such rulings in 2021 and 1,515 rulings in 2020, which were each 27.3 percent of all rulings and 31.6 percent of all rulings in the respective years.
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