Criminal facts shall be proved to the extent that there is no reasonable doubt (Article 307(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act). The choice of evidence and probative value of evidence conducted on the premise of fact finding belong to the free judgment of the fact-finding court.

(1) The court below held that the defendant and co-defendants in the judgment subject to a retrial were not admissible as evidence for conviction on the ground that (1) the defendant and co-defendants in the judgment subject to a retrial were investigated in the state of illegal confinement at the police and were found to have suffered cruel acts in the course of the investigation. (2) As to each protocol of examination of suspect suspect against the defendant and co-defendants in the judgment subject to a retrial, there is no evidence that the statement was made in a particularly reliable state, and in view of the situation where the statement was made in the investigation stage prior to the prosecutor's investigation, there is a high possibility that the state of voluntariness will continue at the investigation stage prior to the prosecutor's investigation

The allegation in the grounds of appeal disputing the fact-finding by the lower court is merely an error of the lower court’s determination on the evidence selection and probative value, which belong to the free judgment of the lower court.

In addition, even if examining the reasoning of the lower judgment in light of the aforementioned legal principles and records, the lower court did not exhaust all necessary deliberations regarding the Voluntaryness of the protocol of interrogation prepared by the public prosecutor and the judgment on admissibility of evidence, and did not err by exceeding the bounds of the principle of free evaluation of evidence against logical and empirical rules

Therefore, the appeal is dismissed. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices on the bench.