Cho Joo-bin, 30, who produced and distributed sexual exploitation material of minors, filed a constitutional complaint to reduce his sentence, but the Constitutional Court did not accept it. Cho received a finalized prison term of 47 years and 4 months.
According to legal sources on the 10th, Cho filed a constitutional complaint on Jan. 8, arguing that Article 383, subparagraph 4 of the Criminal Procedure Act is unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court dismissed it on the 23rd of last month in a unanimous decision by all justices.
From May 2019 to Feb. 2020, Cho threatened dozens of female victims, including children and teenagers, to produce sexual exploitation material, which he sold and distributed in the Telegram "Doctor's Room," and in Oct. 2021 the Supreme Court finalized a 42-year prison sentence.
Cho was additionally indicted in Sept. 2022 for sexually exploiting and raping a victim who was a minor in 2019, and in Dec. last year the Supreme Court finalized a 5-year prison sentence. In Feb. 2024, for an additionally indicted forced indecency case, the Supreme Court finalized a 4-month prison sentence.
Article 383, subparagraph 4 of the Criminal Procedure Act recognizes as grounds for final appeal only a serious mistake of fact or a manifestly unfair sentence in cases where the death penalty, life imprisonment, or imprisonment or confinement of 10 years or more has been imposed.
In the minor rape case, Cho appealed after receiving a 5-year sentence at the first trial, and the second trial dismissed it. He then filed a final appeal with the Supreme Court, and during the proceedings he requested a constitutional review, arguing that because the total sentence exceeds 10 years when adding the 5 years imposed by the first and second trials to the previously finalized 42 years and 4 months, he should be allowed to file a final appeal on the grounds of a mistake of fact or an unfair sentence. When the Supreme Court did not accept this and dismissed the final appeal, he filed a constitutional complaint.
Cho's side argued that, apart from the "Doctor's Room case," the 5-year sentence for the minor rape case "arose from the fortuity of the prosecutor's separate indictments," and that "not adding the sentence for the already finalized crime to the sentence in the case at hand to determine whether a final appeal is allowed violates the principle of equality and infringes the right to a trial, thus violating the Constitution."
The Constitutional Court said, "Determining whether grounds for final appeal exist based only on the sentence imposed in the lower court judgment of the case at hand, without adding the sentence for an already finalized crime to the sentence in the case at hand, is a legislative choice that considers the scope of review in the court of final appeal, the immutability of finalized judgments, and the function of the court of final appeal as a court of law," adding, "It cannot be seen as arbitrary discrimination."
It continued, "If (as Cho's side argues) the scope for recognizing grounds for final appeal is expanded even though the court of final appeal cannot review the finalized portion, there is a concern that the burden of review in the court of final appeal will increase," adding, "It does not align with the perspective of the rational allocation of limited judicial resources."