South Korean judicial rulings on drunk driving and police

South Korean courts have issued various sentences against individuals for crimes involving intoxication and the obstruction of law enforcement.

In early October, several rulings addressed incidents of drunk driving and physical or verbal assault against officers. These included a suspended prison sentence for a man who kicked a police officer in Suwon, a suspended sentence for a driver in Chuncheon who refused breathalyzer tests, and a fine for an individual in Hongcheon who assaulted officers while intoxicated. The Chuncheon District Court emphasized that these sentences reflect the “gravity of disregarding public authority and interfering with legitimate law enforcement duties.”

In a separate ruling, the Gwangju High Court Jeonju Branch upheld a 1.5-year prison sentence for a man in his 50s. The defendant had driven while intoxicated in Jeonju, dragging a police officer for over 200 meters after the officer attempted to perform a sobriety check. The court maintained the sentence due to the defendant’s history of three prior drunk driving convictions.

More recently, a court in Ulsan issued a 1.5-year prison sentence, suspended for three years, to a man in his 40s for attempting to obstruct a breathalyzer test. The defendant consumed a bottle of soju following a parking dispute to hide his initial level of intoxication. In applying the sentence, the court utilized the ‘Kim Ho-jung Prevention Act,’ which was designed to penalize the tactic of consuming additional alcohol to evade accurate blood alcohol measurements.