Long-form arguments
on every comparison.

Proportionality · 6 min read

April 2026

₩2,400 vs. ₩8.6 billion: the 3.6-million-times case

When the Supreme Court upheld a bus driver's dismissal for ₩2,400 and the Seoul High Court suspended Lee Jae-yong's sentence for ₩8.6 billion, the harm ratio between the two cases was 3.6 million to one. The sentencing ratio was infinitely larger.

Chaebol jurisprudence · 7 min read

April 2026

How ‘economic contribution’ became a legal mitigator

There is no statute that lists 'national economic contribution' as a sentencing mitigator. There is no Sentencing Commission tier that explicitly says it. And yet, in chaebol embezzlement cases, courts cite it again and again.

Guidelines & departures · 5 min read

April 2026

Bright lines the powerful design around

The Kim Young-ran Act draws a bright line at ₩1,000,000. The Public Official Election Act draws one at ₩1,000,000. Both lines are easier to engineer around if you have lawyers — and the same lines fall hardest on the people who don't.

Method & data · 5 min read

April 2026

What this dataset is — and what it isn't

We compile publicly reported sentencing outcomes. We do not invent facts; we do not claim to be a court; we do not argue every case was decided wrong. Here is exactly what the dataset is and isn't.

Legal philosophy · 6 min read

May 2026

Legal stability vs. concrete justice

The oldest debate in sentencing: should the law apply mechanically (so the powerful can't escape) or contextually (so the weak aren't crushed)? Korea's data shows what happens when courts pick context only when it suits.

Chaebol jurisprudence · 5 min read

April 2026

Presidential pardons and the gravitational pull of chaebol cases

When the data shows ₩45 billion, ₩86 billion, ₩96 billion, ₩900 billion in chaebol embezzlement and breach of trust — and shows pardons following each — sentencing has stopped being only the courts' job.

Class & sentencing · 6 min read

May 2026

The settlement economy: when restitution is leverage

Korean criminal law treats victim settlement as a powerful mitigator across nearly every offense category. That can humanize sentencing — but it also gives wealth a discount on punishment that the poor cannot access.

Guidelines & departures · 7 min read

April 2026

Deepfake and the 2024 sentencing question

When students at hundreds of Korean schools were found generating AI sexual deepfakes of classmates, the suspended sentences that followed exposed how unprepared sentencing guidelines were for a technology that scales harm faster than statutes can adapt.

Guidelines & departures · 6 min read

May 2026

The Stalking Act and the limits of statutory standardization

The 2021 Stalking Punishment Act was supposed to standardize sentences for an offense long under-recognized. Two years later, the same statute is producing class-coded outcomes. Why?

Legal philosophy · 8 min read

May 2026

What the ramen-pack case tells us about judicial reasoning

When a judge writes that a hungry job-seeker's ten-ramen-pack theft warrants imprisonment, the reasoning offered is rarely cruelty. It is consistency: 'we apply the rule to everyone.' That consistency is exactly the question.

Chaebol jurisprudence · 7 min read

April 2026

Why the pardon pattern matters more than any single sentence

Track the same chaebol names across decades, and a structural pattern emerges: conviction → high nominal sentence → years of mitigation → presidential pardon → restored leadership. The proportionality of any one sentence cannot be assessed without the whole arc.