Episode 7
“My eyes are getting dry.”
After I put in eye drops, I stared back at the monitor.
According to Sim Oh-han, the client had come to see the Seoul Rising Artist Exhibition and then placed the commission.
“No matter how many times I run it back, the client’s path is far too straight.”
It was as if he had come without even looking at the other works, already knowing exactly where Sim Oh-han’s piece was hanging.
It wouldn’t have been unreasonable to say he’d come only to leave behind an alibi.
“Sim Oh-han was right, but this is a problem.”
Even after running the CCTV for four straight days, the conclusion I reached was only one thing.
There was a nonzero chance that, when I questioned the commission client and the defendant as a witness, things would go sideways.
“If I ask him, he’ll just dodge the answer with something like, ‘Oh, now I remember,’ or ‘I don’t remember.’”
To prevent that, I needed to anticipate one move further ahead—but I couldn’t see it.
“If I could, the judge might be able to issue a ruling different from the first trial. But there isn’t enough time.”
Regrettably, a judge’s working hours were finite, overtime included, while cases poured in every day.
In situations like this, unless there were special circumstances, the court had no choice but to uphold the first-instance ruling.
Which meant that unless I had powerful evidence capable of overturning the original verdict, the court could also end up simply accepting the other defendant’s false testimony—the client’s—just as it had in the first trial.
Just like before.
Thud. Thud.
“It’s humiliating that Cha Do-hyuk still can’t find a strong enough move to break the prosecutor’s argument. For now, I need to retrace the commission itself.”
I called Sim Oh-han right away.
Riiing. Riiing.
Click.
“...Lawyer? You’re still awake?”
His voice was foggy, as if I’d woken him from sleep.
“Sim Oh-han. The commission client said he saw The Art of Money at the Shinyoung Gallery, correct?”
“...Uh, yes.”
“But according to the CCTV path, he came straight to where your work was displayed.”
“What? Didn’t he have the pamphlet with him?”
“No.”
“What the—”
A brief silence passed over the phone.
“How on earth is this even working out? I’m sure that’s what he told me, but now you’re saying that’s not true? Even at the first trial, the client said he saw it at the Shinyoung Gallery.”
Yeah. It was probably giving him a splitting headache.
That was when a lawyer was needed.
“Sim Oh-han. When you exhibited the piece, you said you didn’t have the money to put the painting in the pamphlet, so you only listed your name, number, and email address.”
“I did.”
“In my opinion, he probably came because he knew your work was going to be hung at Shinyoung Gallery. He wanted to verify your skill.”
“......?”
“Which means there’s a strong chance he saw your work somewhere else. On social media, or through someone he knew.”
“Hah.”
“On that day, when you spoke to the client on the phone, did he say anything unusual?”
Sim Oh-han stayed quiet for a moment, as if searching his memory.
“Nothing unusual on the call. He asked where he could meet me because he wanted to commission a piece, and I told him to come to the studio the next day.”
“Then what about at the studio? What did he say?”
“I don’t really remember, but he asked whether an original painting would be possible.”
I already knew that much through my ability.
“And?”
“Ah!”
“You remember?”
“The client said he’d seen my work somewhere. But this was my first exhibition. So I thought that was odd.”
He was a client with absolutely no sense of caution.
“When I kept pressing him, he said he became a fan because my work caught his eye the most out of all the pieces at Shinyoung Gallery.”
“...A fan?”
“Yes. He said if he claimed to be a fan after seeing only one piece, I might think that was strange, so he told a little white lie and said he’d seen it somewhere else. He said if he’d known this would be exposed, he would’ve just told me the truth from the beginning.”
“I see.”
This is exactly why studying statement analysis was worth all the hell I went through trying to wake up from that dream-or-tutorial-or-whatever it was.
When you first encounter statement analysis, there’s a line you hear.
There is no such thing as coincidence in life. At least, every word spoken by the declarant carries meaning.
The point is that if unexpected or sudden wording appears in a person’s statement, you have to scrutinize it carefully.
It was unwise to jump to conclusions too quickly, but there was a good chance the client had really seen Sim Oh-han’s work somewhere.
“...So I ended up being completely won over when he asked me to take the commission. ...The money was a factor too.”
If my hunch was right.
“Sim Oh-han, are you absolutely sure you never exhibited anywhere else? Not a gallery—what about a subway station, or an art fair?”
“...Somewhere other than a gallery?”
“Yes. Free or paid, wall or floor, it doesn’t matter. Or maybe you gave it to someone you knew.”
“T-there is!”
* * *
The court served the office with a request for our opinion on the scheduling of the preparatory hearing.
“The preparatory hearing is tentatively set for October 6, 2023, at 10:45 a.m. in Courtroom 523.”
In a citizen-participation trial, pretrial preparation was mandatory, but in ordinary criminal cases, pretrial procedures were opened only for cases referred by the presiding judge.
And at the preparatory hearing, the court would identify the issues related to the charges, along with the evidence and the hearing plan.
“Since it’s the second trial, I thought there might not be any pretrial procedures.”
That was a good start.
I immediately submitted my brief and evidentiary documents to the court.
“Now the real work begins.”
October 6.
The preparatory hearing arrived.
Attendance by the defendant wasn’t mandatory that day, but if the court found it necessary to summon the defendant, it could do so.
In Sim Oh-han’s case, the court did not summon him, and I headed to court alone.
The prosecutor submitted the same evidence list as in the first trial, while I submitted a rebuttal evidence list along with my statement of opinion.
When the trial prosecutor saw my rebuttal, he frowned.
“Attorney Cha Do-hyuk. Do you really think this makes any sense?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t. And as for probative value, couldn’t we determine that through a request for factual inquiry or expert examination?”
The prosecutor tilted his head sideways.
“No, if what you’re saying is correct, then you’re implying the investigating prosecutor had a problem.”
“That could be the case. Or...”
The trial prosecutor might have a problem too.
I shrugged, and only then did he seem to catch my meaning, his face reddening.
“Are you making a fool of the prosecutor right now? This is an insult to the prosecution office.”
I cut him off, making him even more irritable.
“I’m not the one saying things happened when they didn’t. I’m just recording what actually happened.”
“What did you say?”
“Everything in this case is selective, isn’t it? The suspect interrogation record, written as if the defendant had been beaten over the head while giving his statement—selective. The recorded footage—selective. The evidence the investigator grabbed after barging onto the scene—selective.”
“What?”
“And since this is a case of currency forgery, if it’s one the networks never even bother to cover, isn’t that suspicious enough?”
“You, you son of a—what year are you in?”
You’re my classmate, you idiot.
Both the judge and the prosecutor knew it.
Currency forgery was one of the crimes that TV loved to feast on.
And yet this case never made it on air? That’s a little strange, isn’t it? Especially since the prosecutor won the first round.
Bang. Bang.
The judge struck the bench.
“Prosecutor Han, keep your voice down.”
“But Your Honor—”
“You went too far talking about your rank in front of me. And the cursing, too.”
“...I’m sorry.”
Just looking at his face, the judge’s rank is way higher. You have to saber-rattle according to the opponent. Honestly, what a problem.
“And Attorney Cha, don’t provoke him either.”
“I’ll refrain from doing so.”
The judge glanced at my brief—whether to admit the charges, my opinion on the preparatory proceedings, and so on—and let out a small sigh.
“Have you submitted all the evidence you intend to present to the clerk?”
“No.”
“Are you planning to submit an additional brief?”
“Yes. May I submit one on the hearing date?”
“Do that. Then we’ll see each other at the hearing.”
Half the winning strategy is saving the best part for the courtroom.
The preparatory proceedings ended anticlimactically, and I left the courtroom.
“What time is it?”
There was a missed call on my phone.
It was my best friend, Min Ho-jun.
“He called because it’s lunchtime, huh.”
Since I hadn’t answered, he’d even left a message in the group chat.
-Cha Do-hyuk, when are you free around your mother’s memorial day?
-Yeah, as Ho-jun said, we should meet up, right?
“I’m busy right now, so I’ll have to tell them I’ll see them after the hearing.”
* * *
For the first time in a while, I lay down on the sofa and turned on the TV.
A currency forgery case should have been more than enough to make the news at least once, yet Sim Oh-han’s case still hadn’t made it onto television.
Last year, when a foreign worker used movie prop currency as banknotes and put them into circulation, the story hit TV the moment the police arrested him.
But this time, even after the ring had been caught and the first trial had already been decided, nothing had come out.
“It should show up before the second trial.”
I cracked open a can of beer and wet my throat.
That was when it happened.
“There it is. Let’s see the reaction.”
As I watched TV, I scrolled through the live chat.
There were even people from the Minor Art Gallery chiming in, and the flood of comments included not just talk about Sim Oh-han, but also inflammatory posts claiming that poor artists were being stripped of freedom of expression.
Even after the broadcast moved on to the next story, the chat room was still on fire with Sim Oh-han’s name.
“No matter how dead terrestrial TV has gotten, the reach of a terrestrial news broadcast is still no joke.”
Buzzzz.
It was Sim Oh-han calling.
“Ah, Sim Oh-han. I was just about to call you, actually. Good timing.”
“L-lawyer. I-I just watched the 8 p.m. news, and... I saw something strange.”
He always said this was the time of day he was busiest painting. When did he manage to watch it?
“How could a story about you be strange news?”
“Huh? C-cough, cough.”
He must have drawn in his breath too fast, because I could hear him pounding his chest.
It was one thing for him to feel awkward about the media covering his own story, but the man who had been talking about freedom of expression just the other day was now this rattled?
...So it had all been swagger.
“Didn’t I tell you the day I came to the studio that we’d need to stir things up a little as a publicity stunt?”
“Y-yes, you did. So I posted on the Minor Art Gallery forum, too. I even asked a close acquaintance to leave supportive comments.”
Oh, you went that far? I hadn’t even expected you to rope in acquaintances.
“B-but the 8 p.m. news on a major network is the biggest of the big. I never thought my story would be on there!”
“Why are you already panicking?”
“...Huh?”
“This is just the beginning. For now, keep being active on social media. Talk about why I’m being wronged. Whether this is an attack on a poor artist. Say it feels like you’ve fallen victim to a rigged game.”
“I-is that really okay? It won’t hurt the trial, will it?”
Good grief. How much must he be shaking for me to hear it through the phone?
His heart was practically the size of a bean. I’d better tell him to take a herbal calmative before the hearing.
“It’ll help us. When the judge assesses credibility, they try to set personal judgment aside. But judges are people too—it’s impossible to shut everything out.”
“......”
“Especially when doing something different from the first trial would place a huge burden on the judge’s ruling.”
“...Yes.”
“And what Sim Oh-han is doing now is the groundwork for overturning that first trial.”
“That kind of publicity stunt is that serious? Hahhh...”
“I’ll give you more keywords tomorrow, so post something on social media tailored to those. Take photos too. Videos as well.”
“You want me to go that far?”
“Sim Oh-han, you want to win this case, don’t you?”