The defendant shall be innocent.

1. The summary of the facts charged in this case is as follows: (a) the Defendant was sentenced to two years of suspension of the execution on September 5, 2013 by imprisonment with prison labor for violating the Act on the Budgeting and Management of Subsidies at the Seoul Western District Court on December 13, 2012; and (b) the judgment became final and conclusive on September 1, 2013. From July 2012, the Defendant was working as the secretariat of the Social Welfare Foundation D located in Seongbuk-gu, Sungnam-si; (c) on April 24, 2013, the office of the foregoing Welfare Foundation prepared an electronic document of the title “case of request for performance hall rental” using a computer for the purpose of exercising the F performance hall rental in Sungnam-gu, Sungnam-si; (d) the title holder is written as “D,” (e.g., representative director G; and (e) the official seal in the name of the Social Welfare Foundation D is inserted into the electronic document; and (e) the electronic document is forged by means of electronic mail.

2. Determination and conclusion

A. For a crime related to documents under the Criminal Act, the term "documents" means the original, which is an indication of the intention or concept stated on the material object continuously by letters or the virtual code that can replace them, or a copy by mechanical means that can present the same social function and credibility, etc., and its contents can be admitted as evidence with respect to important matters in legal and social life (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2004Do788, Jan. 26, 2006). The image shown on the computer monitoring screen cannot be viewed as continuously fixed on the screen because it is merely caused an electronic response to the image file at each time when the program for viewing the image file is implemented (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2007Do7480, Nov. 29, 2007). b)

In light of the above legal principles, the case was examined as follows.