(영문) 대법원 2021.5.7. 선고 2020도15812 판결

1. For a certain act to be recognized as self-defense, the act must be deemed reasonable to protect the current infringement of one’s own or another’s legal interest, and thus, it does not constitute self-defense against an unlawful legitimate infringement. Whether the act of defense is socially reasonable ought to be determined by taking into account all specific circumstances, such as the type and degree of the legal interest infringed upon, the method of infringement, the level of infringement, and the type and degree of the legal interest to be infringed upon as a defense act (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2013Do2168, Mar. 15, 2017). In a case where the perpetrator’s act was carried out with one another’s intent to attack the victim’s unfair attack rather than with the aim of defending the victim’s unfair attack, and the act of attack was committed with the same nature as a defense act, and thus, cannot be deemed as self-defense or excessive defense (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 200Do2228, Mar. 28, 2000).

2. Based on the following circumstances, the lower court determined that the Defendant’s act did not constitute self-defense or excessive defense as an act of attack that occurred in the course of a fighting rather than for defending the victim’s wrongful attack, while having inflicted an injury upon the victim with dolusorous intent to inflict an injury, and that such act did not constitute self-defense or excessive defense.

A. The Defendant, immediately before having committed the instant injury, was punished for a considerable time of dispute over the wall by cutting the victim’s her mother and her mother, cutting out the her her mother, cutting out the back her her mother, or her flapsing her dub, etc., and assaulting the victim.

B. After the dispute as above, the victim refers to the statement that "a victim's speech according to the defendant's work to avoid the job," and attached the defendant several times in the stairs, and the victim was the wind that the defendant spreads the victim with the wind during the process of vagabonds.

C. The victim appears to have focused on weight in order to attract the victim to the bottom by putting the Defendant. At the time, the Defendant was sufficiently aware that the victim could have come to back to the lower part of the victim in so far as he/she spreads the victim’s losses.

3. Examining the reasoning of the lower judgment in light of the aforementioned legal doctrine and the evidence duly admitted, the lower court did not err by exceeding the bounds of the principle of free evaluation of evidence in violation of logical and empirical rules, or by misapprehending the legal doctrine on intentional injury, self-defense, excessive defense, etc., contrary

4. The Defendant’s appeal is without merit and thus dismissed. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices on the bench.