CCTV를 시청한 자의 진술의 증거능력 내지 증명력 인정

초록

The popularity of the CSI series on TV makes people think that science prevails in every set of criminal investigation and it gives the key to solve crime mysteries. The popular culture gives illusion that even one criminal cannot escape from the web of science as long as CSI agents are able to comb through the crime scene. However,the reality is somewhat different from what is on TV. Criminals do flee away without leaving any trace behind and crime scenes are not the perfect places to collect DNA evidence and other supporting evidence. Some DNA evidence might be partial and tainted and there is possibility where science has not advanced yet contary to the public belief. Some scholar noted that “the fact that someone’s DNA evidence found at the crime scene only puts the person at the scene. It does not mean that s/he is the person who committed the Crime”Besides DNA evidence, CCTV has become one of the most important tool to crack down crimes. We often use CCTV footage to identify suspects and verify what really happened at the crime scene. Although there has been a great concern that CCTV invades people’s privacy, it has prevailed that CCTV is one of the necessary evils. However putting too much trust on CCTV footage might blind justice because as long as there are human factors involved in dealing with CCTV evidence there is a room for error. In the future, computer is going to able to identify suspects out of CCTV footage. However, until such remarkable technological advance becomes reality, human eyes with fundamental flaws will be the yardstick of judgment when it comes to identify suspects. Considering what has been said is all true, what would you do if the only piece of evidence, CCTV footage, to prove crimes is missing while only testimonial evidence provided by whom watched the footage is left? Can you trust the eye witness testimony who only saw the crime scene via CCTV? Is there any reason to equate the Testimony with the actual testimony of whom saw the crime scene without any help fro science such as CCTV? Many questions remain unanswered on that. At the moment, the Korean Supreme Court seems to note that as long as we can trust the testimony of who watched the CCTV footage, the admissibility and probative force of such testimony can be acknowledged. I think such view leaves many doubtful questions unanswered. Most of all the main question will be how much we can trust eye witness testimony when there is no way to prove or disprove it. Science has become one of the most important tools to verify whether the charged crime was ever committed by the accused. However there is a human factor to consider even if we try to deny it. It is neither possible nor desirable to get rid of the human factor to it. It is necessary to be careful when judges need to make a decision only based upon eye witness testimony.

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