The Sŏnch’ŏn Trial: Legalizing Colonial Intentions by Michel Marion A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Michel Marion 2013 The Sŏnch’ ŏn Trial: Legalizing Colonial Intentions Michel Marion Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 2013 Abstract: This thesis takes a fresh look at the legal practices observed at the Sŏnch’ ŏn trial, the main trial of the Korean Conspiracy Case. On 28 June 1912, 132 suspects were brought forth on charges of alleged assassination of the first Governor-General of colonial Korea, Masatake Terauchi. It is argued that if the immediate local interests of the new administration invariably affected the entire case, what determined the nature of the suspects’ treatment before and during the trial was a set of formal and informal legal practices that were transported to the colony amidst legal reforms. By analysis the trial from an empire-wide perspective, this study looks at how specific legal practices from the metropole were exacerbated in Korea through legal loopholes and the agency of legal actors and how such informal and disavowed legal practices both defined the legal system of the colony and helped sustain the Japanese colonial venture. ii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: Japan’s Legal Encroachment in Korea 15 1.1 Japan’s Colonial Paradox 16 1.2 Prescient Legal Reforms 25 1.3 Devising a Legal System for the Koreans 36 Chapter Two: Negotiating Tensions in Court 50 2.1 Torture is an Invalid Critique 52 2.2 Bringing Torture under the Radar 76 2.3 Redefining Torture 84 2.4 The Courtroom Spectacle 89 Chapter Three: Trying the Korean Criminal 95 3.1 Clandestine Exclusionary Mechanisms 96 3.2 The Korean Criminal in the Courtroom 101 3.3 Korean Deceptiveness 114 Conclusion 125 References 128 iii 1 Introduction On June 28 th , 1912, the first large-scale trial of the colony began in the early hours of the morning. 132 men were arraigned on charges of repeated attempts to assassinate Masatake Terauchi, Korea’s first Governor-General, in 1910. More than 700 hundred men were initially arrested, with members of the New People’s Society and Christians disproportionally represented. The arrest of some of these men had already shocked inhabitants of the capital when the colonial authorities captured them in broad day light and covered their heads with white bags before to take them into custody. Some sources claims the group of suspect first comprised 149 men but three died as a result of imprisonment while twenty-three were exiled without trial or released. 1 The majority were men of the provinces of S ŏnch’ ŏn and the former P'y ŏngan provinces in today’s North Korea. Few of the suspects were accused of vandalizing homes to raise funds, of approaching the Count in a private club, at a public event, near his car, to mortgage a home to get bombs for an attack at a gold mine, and to train youngsters to become “dare- to-die” murderers. The six alleged ring-leaders were prominent men of the peninsula, among which were Yun Ch'i-o, a former high-ranking official, and Yang Git’ak, co- editor of the Korean Daily Mail (TaeHan Maeil Sinbo) as well as Chang Ungchin, publisher of the nationalist journal Taegu˘k hakpo . Some American missionaries were also accused of being deeply implicated in the plot, but perhaps out of anxiety to avoid debates on the recently rescinded extraterritorial rights enjoyed by some foreigners, the latter were not arraigned. With the majority having confessed to the plot, the Sŏnch’ ŏn Trial began as no ordinary trial. 1 Frederick Arthur Mackenzie, Korea's fight for freedom (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1920), 220. 2 The 132 accused entered the newly erected Seoul District Court by groups of about ten, each group escorted by three or four warders. They were manacled and tied together by a long cord and divided into two groups of 76 and 56 men. The crowd standing outside the Court was quickly growing excited and much hustling and pushing arose as police and gendarmes tried to drive the crowd them back as far as possible from the gates. Only 200 persons were admitted, having gained admittance by ticket. The guard was heavy; about 30 policemen and half-a-dozen gendarmes guarded the prisoners, while police and gendarme were scattered among the spectators. On either side of the new court were the seats for counsel and the press. As soon as the accused were allowed to speak in open court, they almost unanimously denied the confessions wrung from them by the authorities through what clearly amounted to judicial torture. They spoke of being hung for days, beaten repeatedly, threatened, and eventually forced into confessing to deeds they now vehemently repudiated. The majority in fact asserted to being forced to acquiesce to statements fed to them by the police and the procurators. This came in sharp contrast to the Chief Procurator’s versions of events. The confessions, Chief Procurator Matsuhara and Associate Procurator Sakai argued, were “made in all sincerity and in a frank an open-hearted manner, the result of repentance for the wrong they had done.” 2 The judges for their part remained stoic in the face of these allegations, not only refusing to acknowledge that torture could have occurred and brought false confessions but in fact appeared particularly keen on buttressing their 2 The Korean conspiracy trial; full report of the proceedings (Kobe: Office of the “Japan Chronicle,” 1912): 88. Unfortunately, the first names of the procurators and the majority of judges and lawyers were not transcribed in the proceedings of the trial or contemporary sources related to the case. 3 colleague’ case. But the prosecution’s case was a weak one. Without much standing as exhibit outside a sword, a lamp, few revolvers and the box that allegedly had contained them – far from the hundred and more guns the prosecution claimed were being circulated - the entirety of the case relied on the suspect’s self-incriminating confessions those of others who mentioned them in their own. By the end of the trial the reliability of these confessions had been seriously challenged and apparently irrefutable exonerating proofs were introduced by the defence. As this study will also show, the prosecution used various means to buttress its case, many of which were clearly illegal. Yet, on September 21, the six alleged ring-leaders were sentenced to ten years, 18 to seven years, forty to six years, forty-two to five years while seventeen were discharged. It was as if the months spent in the courtroom had been vein. So flagrant were the many deviations from the “enlightened colonial rule” that was de rigueur among colonial powers, that foreign commentators quickly categorized it as a “lawless trial.” 3 A group of prominent American men met on 11 October, 1912 at the “Confidential Conference on the Situation in Korea,” held at a men’s club in New York, and denounced Japanese procedural practices. In the direct negotiations with the Japanese ambassador to America that followed, they asserted that “[t]he course of the Japanese police and the first trial of the accused Koreans did not do justice to the real spirit and purpose of the Japanese Government and people in dealing with their subjects in Korea.” 4 The lack of tangible proofs, the absence of counsels for the defense during the preliminary investigation as well as accusations against Christians, let alone 3 Alexis Dudden, Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power (Honolulu: University of Hawai´i Press, 2005), 125. 4 Quoted in Ibid . 4 American missionaries, decreased the standing of Japan among Western nations and the “civilized world” more generally. As the Advisor on International Law to the United States at the Hague Peace Conference James Brown Scott asserted, Japan should “amend it criminal law that it can withstand criticism that is based not on a technical difference of method but on that essential justice which mankind has come to demand even from the lowest men.” 5 The activism of these men contrasted with the unwillingness of American consular authorities to infringe of Japanese legal rights in its new colony. Neither, however, overtly challenged the facts of the case and the activists’ critique instead centered on the blatant violations of the procedural rules of the colony. The relentless criticism of the trial and the backdoor negotiations was effective. Two courts had previously rejected the defence’s application for a rehearing, but this time the court of Appeal accepted the case. Judge Suzuki, 6 who heard the case, was given instructions by the Government-General to act “in conciliatory fashion.” The atmosphere at the re-hearing was strikingly different; “there was no bullying, no browbeating.” 7 The prisoners were listened to indulgently, and the defence was allowed considerable latitude in developing its case. Private communication between the Director of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs and foreign missionaries in fact later revealed that the Court of Appeal, under the orders of the government, accepted to rehear the case so that that “the missionary body will in return do something to out the Government in a strong and 5 Ibid , 126. 6 Like the accounts of the Korean Conspiracy Trial, accounts of the rehearing do not mention the full names of the Japanese official participants. 7 Mackenzie notes that "Mr. Komatsu added that Judge Suzuki's action was in reality the action of the Government-General, a quaint illustration of the independence of the judiciary in Korea." See Mackenzie, Korea's fight for freedom , 237.