• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.497-510
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• 2015

The jury instruction consists of a set of legal rules and provides a guide for jurors to interpret evidence and the legal standard of a proof beyond reasonable doubt. Jury instructions are usually given after the closing arguments (at the end of the trial). But some research has shown that jury instruction provided before the evidence may have an impact on verdict. The present study was to determine the cognitive process caused by early instruction: (1) Early instruction may influence the verdict by upwardly adjusting the threshold for the decision to convict; (2) early instruction may influence the verdict through evaluations of the probative values of evidence; (3) Or both. 187 people older than 20 years of age participated in the on-line survey. With a trial scenario, one independent variable, Instruction Procedure, was manipulated in three levels: before-and-after the evidence procedure, after-only evidence procedure, and no-instruction procedure. The instruction procedure conditions did not show any difference in the evaluation of the probative values of evidence. On the other hand, before-and-after condition showed the lowest rate of guilty verdict and the highest probability of guilt for the defendant in the scenario. This latter result clearly suggested that the instruction procedure affects the decision threshold. Specifically, instruction provided twice, once before and again after the evidence, may upwardly shift the threshold for the decision to convict.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.3-36
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• 2023

The main issue in medical malpractice civil litigation is medical negligence and the causal relationship between medical negligence and damages. Regarding the presumption of causality in cases where medical negligence is proven, there is a previous Supreme Court decision 93da52402 on February 10, 1995, but it is difficult to find a case that satisfies the textual requirements of the above decision, and yet, in practice, the above decision is cited. In many cases, causal relationships were assumed, and criticism was consistently raised that it was inconsistent with the text of the above judgment. In its ruling, the Supreme Court reorganized and presented a new legal principle regarding the presumption of causality when medical negligence is proven in a civil lawsuit. According to this, If the patient proves ① the existence of an act that is assessed as a medical negligence, that is, a violation of the duty of care required of an ordinary medical professional at the level of medical care practiced in the field of clinical medicine at the time of medical practice, and ② that the negligence is likely to cause damages to the patient, the burden of proving the causal relationship is alleviated by presuming a causal relationship between medical negligence and damage. Here, the probability of occurrence of damage does not need to be proven beyond doubt from a natural scientific or medical perspective, but if recognizing the causal relationship between the negligence and the damage does not comply with medical principles or if there is a vague possibility that the negligence will cause damage, causality cannot be considered proven. Meanwhile, even if a causal relationship between medical negligence and damage is presumed, the party that performed the medical treatment can overturn the presumption by proving that the patient's damage was not caused by medical negligence. Meanwhile, unlike civil cases, the standard is 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' in criminal cases, and the legal principle of presuming causality does not apply. Accordingly, in a criminal case of professional negligence manslaughter that was decided on the same day regarding the same medical accident, the case was overturned and remanded for not guilty due to lack of proof of a causal relationship between medical negligence and death. The above criminal ruling is a ruling that states that even if 'professional negligence' is recognized in a criminal case related to medical malpractice, the person should not be judged guilty if there is a lack of clear proof of 'causal relationship'.