수사절차상 진술왜곡의 원인과 개선방안에 관한연구

Abstract

Finding the substantive truth, the purpose of criminal procedures, is done by re-organizing a case on the basis of evidence by a judge. However, if the judge relies on contaminated evidence in re-organizing the case, an error may occur in the judge’s search for truth. An analysis of foreign misjudgment cases revealed that two-thirds of them were due to wrong testimonies of eyewitnesses. Thus, the cause of misjudgments is not so much material evidence as it is statement evidence. Once a criminal case occurs, the first obtainer of statements is the investigator. If an interrogation is conducted inappropriately, distortion of statements may occur as a natural result. Even if the statements are not coerced, they may be distorted by an inappropriate interrogative method. If an investigator questions using a strong hint, or interrupts free recollection, the interviewee may give a distorted statement following the investigator’s question. If the interrogation is uniformly applied without distinction between interrogation of a suspect (discriminating a real culprit from an innocent person) and interrogation of an eyewitness (obtaining information related to the case), the information obtained from the interrogation will be negligible. These instances occur because the investigator did not understand the possible distortion of information during the interrogation. I would like to suggest a plan that secures truthful statements by preventing the distortion of statements that may occur during the process of an interrogation. First, the investigator, prior to interrogation, should lessen the stress of the person to give a statement. If the person begins to trust the investigator, he will try to give related information as accurately as possible. With this basis of trust, if the interrogation is conducted using appropriate questions with language the person can easily understand, accuracy will be high. And in order to acquire true information from the statement, an interrogative method suitable for the case should be applied. For suspects, I would like to suggest the Behavior Analysis Technique, which can discriminate the real culprit from the innocent, and for eyewitnesses, I would like to suggest the Shortened-Type Cognitive Interview Technique, which can effectively acquire accurate information. Of course, these interrogative methods should be backed by a good understanding of the importance of the investigator’s interrogative techniques. If accurate information is acquired in the process of interrogation through these effective methods, substantive truth, the purpose of criminal procedures will be found through correct judgment, guilty or not guilty, by the judge during the trial stage.