I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 53

『 Translator – Divinity 』

“In this case, determining whether he’s guilty or not guilty isn’t the only important thing. That’s just one of the many issues involved in this problem.”

“…Then what is?”

Until now, the format of the cases in the Mock Trial Competition had been the same as in the first preliminary round.

The charges were given beforehand, and we were asked whether they were established or not.

If the defendant’s guilt was proven, the prosecution won, and if it was proven that the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt, the defense won.

It was an intuitive and clear rule.

But this time, it wasn’t that simple.

“They didn’t give us the charges.”

“Oh, you’re right.”

“This means we have to determine the weight of the crime ourselves, in other words… decide from the beginning what and how much to punish.”

For example, let’s say there’s a guy who killed someone during a robbery.

If this guy, not satisfied with just stealing money and valuables, intentionally killed the person, he would be punished for robbery and homicide.

On the other hand, if he committed robbery but didn’t intend to kill, and the victim died by accidentally being hit by his arm, which he swung to intimidate them, it’s a different story.

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

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

Naturally, what needs to be proven is also distinguished between intent and negligence.

“From the defense’s perspective, the best outcome is to get an acquittal. If that’s not possible, we have to lead the argument towards a lesser charge.”

If that was the winning condition for the defense, naturally, the winning condition for the prosecution was the opposite.

They had to construct their argument to lead to the heaviest possible punishment and avoid an acquittal at all costs.

“But it’s not enough to just argue for a heavy or light sentence.”

First, the argument had to be provable based on the provided materials and evidence, in other words, it had to ‘make sense’.

We had to accurately assess the weight of the crime from our position and find the most reasonable compromise point, considering the persuasiveness of the argument.

“Then… it’s most similar to the criminal law questions from the second evaluation in the pre-law program.”

“That’s right. Back then, they also told the prosecution to argue for the heaviest possible sentence and the defense for the lightest.”

When a case was structured like this, choosing the defense side was generally overwhelmingly advantageous.

This was because the prosecution only had one chance to choose the applicable charges, but the defense could first argue for acquittal and then continue to argue for a lesser charge.

Furthermore, since the burden of proof in a criminal trial fundamentally lies with the prosecution, there was relatively more room to raise objections to the evidence.

Naturally, Jang Yong-hwan, who created the question, also knew this.

So, he’s saying that he’ll judge us comprehensively, considering the entire process of presenting arguments, raising objections, and defending, and choose the team that did ‘better’ overall.

“So even if we reach a conclusion close to the answer Professor Jang Yong-hwan has in mind, we could still lose if we force our arguments or go in circles without finding the right path in the process.”

“This is difficult…”

It wasn’t intuitive.

If guilty, the prosecution wins, if not guilty, the defense wins.

The structure of the preliminary rounds we’ve had so far was much simpler and easier to understand.

Then what was the intention behind changing it like this?

“What do you think it is?”

“Hmm…”

My teammates’ sparkling eyes turned towards me.

Perhaps because I had always found amazing answers in these situations, I felt as if they had infinite trust in me.

I nodded vigorously towards them.

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“What, am I a god? If I could always read the professor’s mind like that, I should be sitting in his seat, not next to you guys.”

I pointed at Jang Yong-hwan’s judge’s seat and then our seats.

I was just an examinee who had solved more problems than others, so I was a bit quicker witted and had more know-how.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

“But… I think I understand how he created this case.”

“I think I know that too. Isn’t it a mix of the ‘Boramae Hospital’ case and the ‘Grandma Kim’ case?”

“You’re exactly right.”

The Boramae Hospital case was about a wife who, after suffering from her husband’s domestic violence and separating from him, requested the discharge of her husband, who was in a vegetative state and receiving life-sustaining treatment, leading to his death.

The Grandma Kim case was about the family of ‘Grandma Kim’, who became a vegetative state due to excessive bleeding while receiving lung cancer treatment, requesting the discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment.

Although the hospital approved it, Grandma Kim didn’t die immediately after the treatment was stopped and continued to live for hundreds of days.

The part about becoming a vegetative state due to excessive bleeding and the patient being elderly was similar to the Grandma Kim case.

And the part about the patient being an abusive person who committed domestic violence before the incident and dying immediately after life-sustaining treatment was stopped was similar to the Boramae Hospital case.

As expected of the precedent copy machine, Han Seol.

To be able to see at a glance which precedents were used to create the problem…

“If we consider that he specifically combined those two cases… I have a rough idea of the issues we need to address. And which side to choose, prosecutor or defense.”

“What? So you had a plan all along. Then which side should we choose?”

“Prosecution.”

I declared.

“But isn’t the defense more advantageous in this kind of structure?”

“That’s true. But Professor Jang Yong-hwan is well aware of that, and he said he would take that into account when evaluating us. And the defense being advantageous is only in terms of the structure.”

I added, tracing a point in the document with my index finger,

“In this case, it would be better to be on the prosecution side.”

***

The screens in both waiting rooms were being broadcast in real-time to the judge’s bench and the audience.

Come to think of it, there was still a lot of time left before the actual legal battle began.

Once this 10-minute analysis time was over, both teams would have 2 hours and 30 minutes to read the materials, write their briefs, and prepare their arguments.

Despite that, there was a reason why the audience was already so crowded.

Thanks to the screens, the entire process of the participating teams analyzing the problem, searching for materials, and preparing their arguments was being revealed in real-time, without missing a second.

In other words, it was a golden opportunity to observe everything, including the thought processes, logic, and problem-solving approaches of the outstanding students.

One fact we shouldn’t forget: This was Hankuk University Law School.

A group of people who seemed to have staked their lives on succeeding through studying.

Therefore, there was no way this many people would gather just because it was a hot topic.

They were too focused on studying to move just for entertainment.

They gathered because there was something to gain.

‘Interesting.’

And it wasn’t just the audience who was watching the whole process.

The evaluators sitting on the judge’s bench were also observing the preparation process and using it as data for scoring.

Even at this moment, Jang Yong-hwan was staring at the videos from both waiting rooms with his sharp eyes.

“Um, Min-hwan oppa, is there anything we can help with…?”

“No.”

“Hyung, we feel bad. Of course, we’re grateful that you’re carrying us, but even so, as a team, we should be of some use…”

“It’s fine.”

A strange scene was unfolding in Gu Min-hwan’s team.

Gu Min-hwan, who seemed capable of doing the work of three people alone, or even five or ten based on an ordinary student, was holding onto all the materials and not letting go.

He was simultaneously flipping through three stacks of documents in front of him, grasping the overview and scribbling something on a notepad.

His two teammates, as always, were reduced to mere bystanders, awkwardly standing by his side.

“This case record. How was it made?”

“Huh? The method of creation? Can you even tell that?”

“Hmm.”

Gu Min-hwan shook his head.

“That’s why you guys aren’t needed.”

At that moment, as if hearing him, the answer came from the screen in the opposite waiting room.

“‘Isn’t it a mix of the ‘Boramae Hospital’ case and the ‘Grandma Kim’ case?'”

‘…There’s quite a difference in skill.’

Jang Yong-hwan fell into thought.

There was a reason why Choi Sung-chul was so pleased with this year’s first-year students, calling them a golden generation.

Even though they were top students, the teams composed of these first-year students were already far exceeding the average level of the second-year students.

Han Seol boasted such a vast amount of memorized information that it made you wonder if there was any precedent she didn’t know.

That alone was surprising, but that Park Yoo-seung guy was showing the audacity to try and climb on top of the examiner’s head.

It was so outrageous that Jang Yong-hwan couldn’t help but smile.

‘This is interesting.’

The student he was most interested in among this year’s first-years was Park Yoo-seung.

From the beginning of the semester, he had been identifying issues that others missed and demonstrating acrobatic feats of dodging unseen traps, and now he had even achieved the feat of getting first place in the midterms.

‘What will you show me this time, Park Yoo-seung?’

Of course, even though Jang Yong-hwan had high expectations for these first-year students, whether they could guarantee victory in this final was another matter.

On the other side, there was Gu Min-hwan, a genius on a different level, showing off his presence.

“The issues are as follows.”

“Huh? Are you explaining it to us?”

“Just this once.”

Gu Min-hwan briefly compared the words written in his notebook with the stack of documents and then began reciting,

“First, whether this case of euthanasia can be justified constitutionally.”

“Constitutionally…? Oppa, weren’t we dealing with criminal law?”

“In the Grandma Kim case, a precedent was set that passive euthanasia is legal under specific conditions. If the conditions for considering euthanasia legal are met in this case, it doesn’t constitute a crime in the first place, so both Kim Gab-dong and Lee Eul-nam are not guilty.”

“…Ah, I see!”

Gu Min-hwan continued to read the memo in his notebook, pointing out the issues of the case one by one.

He had even meticulously checked the page numbers of the relevant materials.

His eyes gleamed coldly as he picked up the documents and examined them.

“Wow, that hyung is insane. He’s already extracted that many issues while reading through that much material alone?”

“How can we beat a professional? He’s someone who already made a living in the criminal justice field.”

“There’s a limit to slaughtering civilians.”

The audience was buzzing with such comments.

The name Gu Min-hwan carried that much weight even among the second-year students.

But from Jang Yong-hwan’s perspective, it wasn’t something he could be sure of.

“Look at this document.”

“This is… a doctor’s opinion?”

“Isn’t it a bit strange?”

“Uh, wait a minute. Hmm… where?”

“This part here. I ran it through ‘Effortless’ earlier, and there was an error, so I looked at it again, and there’s a clear difference in the sentence structure and format. There’s a separate original, and someone tampered with it while creating the problem.”

On the screen for the other team’s waiting room, Park Yoo-seung was holding up a document and declaring,

“Professors aren’t people with nothing to do. They’re incredibly busy. But while creating hundreds of pages of materials for the preliminaries, they went through the trouble of changing the content this much and even tampering with some parts? It definitely means there’s a hidden issue.”

“…Now that I think about it, is it really okay to solve it this way?”

Park Yoo-seung’s observation skills, intuition, and his unique approach of trying to read the examiner in reverse were by no means trivial.

Although Jang Yong-hwan hadn’t expected him to grasp the clues this way, Park Yoo-seung had actually caught the scent quite accurately.

‘It seems like… there was a slight mistake while editing that report.’

Actually, it was a bit much to call it a mistake.

The sentences used by doctors and those used by legal professionals were fundamentally different, so it wasn’t strange that the traces of editing were noticeable.

Rather, it might be Park Yoo-seung, who was using that as a hint, who was truly strange.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Lost in thought, the stopwatch Jang Yong-hwan had in his pocket let out a sharp alarm. It meant time was up.

“Time’s up.”

The curtain was finally rising on the stage.

“Both teams, gather in the courtroom and present your desired positions.”