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Interview · Post-conviction review · Sentencing & prosecution

Michael Parente

Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Director, Post-Conviction Justice Project, USC Gould School of Law

https://youtu.be/L0Rtqky-xnQ ↗

Chapters

Key moments from the conversation, each paired with a Korean case that raises the same question.

Chapter 01

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Why criminal justice should not focus only on innocence

  • Innocence projects draw a lot of attention, yet establishing factual innocence is extremely hard, even for experienced lawyers.
  • Defence should not hinge on proving innocence. Innocent and guilty defendants alike are owed fair representation, fair procedure and proportionate punishment.
  • Because most projects centre on innocence, cases where guilt is not in question are under-represented.
  • Advocacy can also ask whether a person's rights were respected and whether the punishment itself was justified.

The Korean parallel

Yakchon intersection murder case (2000)

A teenager was wrongly convicted of murdering a taxi driver and served 10 years before being acquitted at a 2016 retrial. The court raised serious concerns about coercive investigation and a likely false confession, a reminder that how a case is investigated matters as much as its outcome.

Chapter 02

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Can a sentence that was just become unjust over time?

  • Sentences are handed down with incomplete information about who the person will become years later.
  • A long sentence can look justified when someone is a serious danger to the public.
  • If that person is rehabilitated, the original reason for keeping them in prison weakens considerably.
  • A sentence can therefore be proportionate when imposed and needlessly severe decades later.

The Korean parallel

Article 72 of the Korean Criminal Act

People serving life sentences become eligible for parole consideration after 20 years, and those serving fixed terms after one third of the sentence. Eligibility does not guarantee release, but it gives the law a way to reassess continued imprisonment.

Chapter 03

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Justice systems should never say never

  • One of the biggest obstacles to post-conviction relief is that some systems offer very few chances to reconsider a sentence.
  • Once appeals are exhausted, a person in prison may have no real way to seek reconsideration, even when their circumstances have fundamentally changed.
  • Professor Parente criticises rigid approaches that put finality ahead of the possibility of rehabilitation.
  • A fair system balances legal finality against the fact that people change, and that new evidence can surface.

The Korean parallel

Kim Shin-hye case (2000 to 2025)

Kim received a life sentence in 2000. A retrial was authorised in 2015, yet she was not acquitted and released until January 2025. Korea's National Human Rights Commission later criticised the drawn-out proceedings and the failure to suspend her sentence during the retrial. The case is about guilt rather than sentence length, but it shows the human cost of slow post-conviction relief.

Next interview

Ronald P. Fisher →