How Kim Shin-hye was exonerated after spending 24 years in prison

Kim Shin-hye is surrounded by reporters close to the Jangheung Correctional Establishment in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province, Monday. The 47-year-old was exonerated after being wrongfully convicted of killing her father in 2000. Newsis

When Kim Shin-hye was put behind bars after being discovered responsible of killing her father in 2000, she was solely 23 years previous. After spending 24 years in jail, she was declared harmless in a courtroom ruling.

Judges on the Gwangju District Court docket on Monday overturned her conviction in her retrial and ordered the Jangheung Correctional Establishment to launch Kim, who’s now 47.

“This could by no means be repeated,” Kim stated as she exited the ability. “It may’ve been corrected (earlier). However it took 25 years. (In jail,) I believed lots about why it ought to take such a very long time … I’ll do my half to stop a recurrence of such tragedy.”

It’s the first case of a prisoner being exonerated and launched for a wrongful conviction whereas nonetheless serving time in jail in Korea.

Kim was beforehand sentenced to life in jail after being convicted of murdering her father, then 52, who was discovered lifeless close to a bus station on Wando, an island county in South Jeolla Province, on March 7, 2000.

Initially, he was suspected of being killed in a automobile accident. However an post-mortem discovered that he was intoxicated with alcohol and doxylamine, an antihistamine drug used to deal with insomnia.

Quickly, they arrested Kim because the prime suspect, primarily based mostly on her confession. They accused her of killing him by tricking him into having alcohol combined with 30 doxylamine drugs, saying she did so for retribution after he sexually assaulted her. In addition they stated a life insurance coverage payout might have additionally motivated her to plot to homicide him.

However because the trial started, Kim reversed her assertion, insisting on her innocence. She stated she lied as a result of she wished to guard her youthful brother, who was suspected of committing the crime. Kim stated she had believed a relative who advised her that her brother will need to have been the killer.

She additionally stated she had by no means been sexually assaulted. Frightened and confused, she stated she had accomplished what a few of her kinfolk advised her, believing she would obtain a much less extreme penalty if she made such claims.

But the prosecution and judges finally dismissed her claims and sentenced her to life imprisonment.

Park Joon-young, a human rights lawyer who helped Kim Shin-hye in her retrial, smiles after her launch from the Jangheung Correctional Establishment in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province, Monday. Yonhap

She would nonetheless be incarcerated — with none sensible hope of launch — if it had not been for Park Joon-young, a human rights lawyer identified for serving to individuals like Kim.

Having carried out his personal investigation, Park, together with different legal professionals, concluded that she was wrongfully interrogated by police within the first place and that it led to a flawed ruling. He then filed for a retrial, which the courtroom accepted in 2015.

“For twenty-four years, she fought a battle for fact inside a solitary cell,” the lawyer stated. “I hope this ruling serves as a turning level for Kim and her siblings to revive their lives.”

After years of hearings, the judges concluded that proof used towards her had been obtained unlawfully, by way of coercion and searches with no warrant, and that accusations introduced towards her had not been sufficiently verified.

The post-mortem report confirmed no proof that he had taken a considerable amount of doxylamine as alleged by the prosecution, stated the courtroom, including that his excessive blood alcohol content material of 0.303 p.c might have been the actual explanation for his dying.

The courtroom additionally dominated that proof was inadequate to show that she had been sexually assaulted.

On insurance coverage fraud allegations, Choose Park Hyun-soo stated: “She wouldn’t be allowed to say the advantage of his newly contracted insurance coverage inside the first two years and he or she was most likely conscious of all of it as an insurance coverage planner.“