영아살해죄의 주관적 동기에 대한 일반인들의 인식

Public Perceptions of Subjective Motivation of Infanticide

Because of the past legislative intention for the infanticide were different from now, difficulty of judging subjective motivation requirement of infanticide, and sentence reduction requirement for infanticide compared to murder, maintaining the infanticide law raised many questions among legal scholars and practitioners. Previous research studies on the infanticide are mostly discussed in terms of maintenance, abolition, or amendment of the infanticide law. However, public perceptions and legal sentiments of subjective motivation of infanticide have not been empirically examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine whether the sentence reduction requirement for infanticide corresponds to public perceptions, especially to examine how public perceive the subjective motives of infanticide. For the study, 480 adults participated. They were randomly assigned into one of four mock infanticide trial scenarios where the defendant’s subjective motivations to kill the infant was manipulated. The manipulated subjective motivations of the defendant were 1) to conceal shame of an adult offender, 2) to conceal shame for an minor offender, 3) impossible to nurture a baby, and 4) other considerable motives (abnormal mental state of the offender due to childbirth). The results of this study are as follows. First, the subjective motivation of offender’s abnormal mental state due to childbirth was mostly punished the defendant as a case of infanticide than a murder and this subjective motivation was rated as most fit category of “other considerable motives”. Second, the lowest sentence were imposed to the defendant with abnormal mental state due to childbirth and viewed as most valid subjective motivation to lower the sentence compared to murder. Based on the results, it is the right time to discuss the criminal law policy and the amendment of the infanticide. Limitations of the study was also discussed.