I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 53

Episode 53

"This case isn't just about determining guilt or innocence. That's just one of the countless issues that are intertwined within this problem."

"......Then what is it?"

Until now, the format of the moot court competition cases had been the same as the first preliminary match.

They would announce the charges beforehand, and then ask whether or not those charges were valid.

If the prosecution proved the defendant's guilt, they won, and if they revealed that the evidence wasn't enough to prove guilt, the defense side won.

It was an intuitive and simple rule.

But this time, it wasn't that simple.

"They didn't give us any, did they? The charges."

"Ah. That's true."

"This is about directly weighing the severity of the crime, in other words... it's about deciding from the beginning what should be punished, and to what extent."

For example, let's say there's a guy who killed someone while committing robbery.

If this guy intentionally killed the person, not only taking their money and possessions, then he would be punished for robbery-murder.

On the other hand, if he committed robbery but didn't intend to kill, and the victim died because they were accidentally hit by his arm that he had swung to scare them, then the story would be different.

In this case, he would be punished for robbery resulting in death.

The severity of the crime and the corresponding punishment are different between the two.

Naturally, the content that has to be proven is also different between intent and negligence.

"From the defense's perspective, the best outcome is to get a not guilty verdict. If that's impossible, then they have to try to get them punished for a crime that has a lighter sentence."

If that was the defense's condition for victory, then the prosecution's condition for victory would naturally be the opposite.

They had to construct their arguments so that the defendant would be punished with the heaviest sentence possible, and they had to avoid a not guilty verdict at all costs.

"But it's not like just making it heavy or light is the right answer."

First of all, their argument had to be provable based on the presented materials and evidence, meaning that it had to 'make sense'.

They had to weigh the possibility of persuasion and the severity of the crime based on their position and find the most reasonable compromise.

"Then... it's the most similar to the criminal problems from the second evaluation in the free spirit state."

"That's right. Back then, they also told the prosecutors to make their arguments as heavy as possible, and the defense to make them as light as possible."

When a case was structured in this format, it was overwhelmingly advantageous to choose the defense side.

The prosecutor only had one chance to choose the charges that would be applied, but the defense could first claim innocence and then continue to argue that even if they were guilty, they should be punished for a crime with a lighter sentence.

In addition, since the burden of proof in a criminal trial was basically on the prosecution, there were also relatively more opportunities to find fault with the evidence.

Of course, Jang Yong-hwan, who had created the problem, was well aware of this.

That was why he was saying that he would comprehensively evaluate all of the processes of developing the arguments, finding fault, and defending, and choose the team that had done 'better' overall.

"In the end, even if we come to a conclusion that's close to what Jang Yong-hwan is thinking, we could still lose if we force things or go around in circles without finding the right path."

"It's difficult..."@@@@

It wasn't intuitive.

If they were guilty, the prosecutor won, and if they were innocent, the defendant won.

The structure of the preliminary matches that we had played so far was much simpler, clearer, and easier to understand.

Even so, what was the reason for changing it like this?

"What do you think it is?"

"Hmm..."

My teammates' sparkling eyes were directed at me.

It was as if they had an infinite amount of trust in me, as I had always found amazing answers in these kinds of situations.

I nodded my head energetically at them.

"I don't know."

"Huh?"

"No, am I a god? If I could read the professor's mind so easily, I would be sitting in that chair, not sitting next to you guys."

I pointed to the judge's seat where Jang Yong-hwan was sitting and then to our seats in turn.

I was just a test taker who had solved more problems than others, and that was why I was a bit better at using my brain and had a lot of know-how.

If I didn't know, then I didn't know.

"However... I do know how this case was created."

Jang Yong-hwan was lost in thought.

The reason why Choi Sung-cheol had been so happy about this first-year class, calling them the golden generation, was now clear.

Even if they were in the upper ranks, the teams that were composed of these first-year students were already far exceeding the average level of the second-year students.

Han Seol was showing off her vast memory, to the point where you might wonder if there was even a single precedent that she didn't know.

That alone was amazing, but that guy named Park Yoo-seung was showing a very annoying behavior, as if he was trying to sit on the head of the person who had created the problem.

He was so annoying that it made Jang Yong-hwan's lips curl up in a smile.

'Interesting.'

Park Yoo-seung was the talent that Jang Yong-hwan had been keeping his eye on the most among this first-year class.

Since the beginning of the semester, the guy had been pinpointing issues that others couldn't see, and he had been showing off his acrobatic skills, avoiding traps that others couldn't see. Now, he had even managed to achieve first place on the midterm exams.

'What are you going to show me this time, Park Yoo-seung?'

Of course, even if Jang Yong-hwan had high expectations for these first-year students, that didn't mean that he could be sure of victory in this final match.

On the other side, there was Gu Min-hwan, a prodigy from a different dimension.

"The issues are, as follows."

"Uh, uh? Are you explaining it?"

"Just once."

Gu Min-hwan skimmed through the notes he had written and the stack of documents, and then started to recite.

"First. Whether or not euthanasia in this case can be justified constitutionally."

"Constitutionally...? Oppa, weren't we dealing with criminal law?"

"In the Grandma Kim case, there was a precedent that stated that passive euthanasia is legal under certain special conditions. If the conditions to see euthanasia as legal are satisfied in this case, then there wouldn't be a crime in the first place, so both Kim Gap-dong and Lee Eul-nam would be innocent."

"......Ah, I see!"

After that, Gu Min-hwan continued to read the notes that he had written down and pointed out the issues of the case one by one.

He had even checked which page the related parts were on.

His eyes were gleaming coldly as he picked up the documents and reviewed them.

"Wow, that guy really is crazy. He read that many documents and already extracted that many issues?"

"How can we beat an expert? He's someone who's been working in the field with criminal law."

"There's a limit to this kind of massacre."

The spectators were whispering like that.

That was how much weight Gu Min-hwan's name had among the second-year students.

But for Jang Yong-hwan, it was still an uncertain problem.

"Look at this material."

"This is... a doctor's opinion?"

"Isn't something a bit strange?"

"Uh, just a minute. Uhm... where?"

"Here, this part. I ran it through 'Free-Loading' and it gave me an error, so I looked at it again, and there's a clear difference in the sentence structure and format. It means that there's a separate original, and that someone tampered with it in the process of creating the problem."

On the opposite screen, Park Yoo-seung was picking up a document and declaring it.

"Professors aren't people who have nothing to do. They're extremely busy people. But even so, if they went to the effort of creating hundreds of pages of materials for the preliminaries, and then they went to the trouble of tampering with the content like this? It definitely means that they've hidden an issue there."

"......Now that I think about it, is it really okay to solve it like that?"

Park Yoo-seung's observation skills. His intuition. And his unique approach of reading the creator's intentions backwards was something that was not easy to deal with.

He hadn't expected him to grasp the clues like that, but in reality, Park Yoo-seung had been fairly accurate in smelling the trail.

'That report... I guess I made a small mistake while editing it.'

Actually, it wasn't really a mistake.

The sentences that doctors used and the sentences that lawyers used were fundamentally different, so it wasn't strange that there were traces of him tampering with it.

Rather, it was Park Yoo-seung who was using a 'trick' to find hints there, which made him a truly strange guy.

-Beep. Beep. Beep.

While he was thinking that, the stopwatch that he had put in his pocket rang sharply. It meant that the time was up.

"Time's up."

Finally, the curtain of the stage was about to rise.

"Both teams, please gather in the courtroom and state the positions that you wish to take."