I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 33

『 Translator – Divinity 』

My gaze subtly shifted to the bag placed under the desk.

Inside the bulging black bag were “Summary of Criminal Law” and “Untying the Knots of Civil Law,” which I always carried around like a part of my body.

My treasures, created by trimming the unnecessary and adding the essential.

Naturally, these books were also filled with past multiple-choice questions.

‘It wouldn’t be true single-book learning otherwise.’

Although essay questions were the core of law exams, the score from multiple-choice questions couldn’t be ignored either.

I had been reviewing these books every day without fail, constantly familiarizing myself with the multiple-choice options.

Even when I had some spare time, like when I visited my family the other day, I would often take out the multiple-choice question book and solve some problems to check my knowledge.

A crazy guy who’s prepared for multiple-choice exams even on a normal day?

That’s me.

Of course, I wasn’t the only competitor.

“Hey, what do we do about this?”

“What else can we do? We have to rely on our usual skills.”

“Well, that’s easy for you to say…”

Shin Seo-joon seemed a bit troubled but not overly flustered.

In this scene in the original story, even without preparing for the multiple-choice questions, he showed a correct answer rate of over 80% with just his basic skills.

The time it took him to finish and leave was also the fastest, at 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Considering that there were a total of 60 questions to solve today, it was a considerable speed.

Indeed, the honor of being the top student at the Police University wasn’t something you could earn by playing around.

Among the many elites gathered here, it was proof of his achievement, earned by majoring in Criminal Law and competing.

Regardless of my personal feelings towards Shin Seo-joon, his skills were real.

‘And there’s no need to look far for competitors.’

“Hmm, but this is fortunate. That it’s multiple-choice.”

“…Why is that fortunate?”

“I’m confident in my memorization skills.”

Han Seol’s study method was to cram everything within the scope. No prioritizing or shortcuts.

If there was a lot to memorize, she would just sit for longer, and if it was difficult, she would concentrate harder, that was her motto.

An ordinary person would probably collapse from exhaustion trying to follow her.

But thanks to her lifelong dedication, Han Seol’s memorization skills far surpassed that of ordinary people.

When it came to multiple-choice questions alone, she was even half a step ahead of Shin Seo-joon.

‘Actually, during the first evaluation in the pre-law program, she solved the multiple-choice section faster than Shin Seo-joon. And got more correct answers.’

Although she struggled a bit with Jang Yong-hwan’s multiple-choice questions, which included some unusual types, she still firmly held onto her second-place position.

To have to solve multiple-choice questions in the same classroom as these monsters…

This was truly…

‘The best!’

It was an opportunity to test how competitive I had become before the main event, the midterm exams.

Despite everything, the current situation was very advantageous for me.

After all, I knew that this incident would happen around today, and I had prepared for it in advance.

On the other hand, no matter how outstanding they were, the others hadn’t specifically prepared for this exam.

If I couldn’t achieve overwhelming results even in such favorable conditions, I naturally wouldn’t be able to win in the midterms, where everyone would be fully prepared.

At least for today, I had to be the best.

“Then, I’ll be going. Do your best, everyone.”

Jang Yong-hwan left, entrusting the exam supervision to the teaching assistants.

The door closed, and the teaching assistants guided the start of the exam.

“We will begin. You may start solving the problems.”

There was no time to waste. Let’s start tackling the questions right away.

[Question 1. Which of the following statements about the types of crimes is incorrect? (In case of dispute, follow the precedent)]

① The crime of dereliction of duty is not an instantaneous crime because as long as there is a fact corresponding to the elements of the crime by not performing a duty to act, and the illegal state of inaction continues, the punishable illegal state continues to exist.

② The crime of intimidation is a crime of endangerment that protects the legal interest of a person’s freedom of decision-making, and even if the notice of harm has reached the other party but the other party has not perceived it or recognized the meaning of the notified harm, the crime of intimidation should be considered to have reached completion.

③ The crime of abuse is a crime of state or an instantaneous crime that is completed at the same time as the act of inflicting physical pain or mental discrimination on a person under one’s protection or supervision.

‘The first question is quite a challenge.’

Perhaps considering the sudden nature of the exam, the questions were structured as 3-choice questions instead of the usual 5-choice questions.

It was something to be grateful for since it meant less confusion for the test-taker.

But that didn’t mean the content of each option became easier.

‘Types of crimes, huh.’

Confusing terms were popping up in the options.

Instantaneous crime, crime of state, crime of endangerment, and so on. Those who didn’t know might feel nauseous just looking at them, but they weren’t actually that difficult.

First, all crimes can be divided into crimes of infringement and crimes of endangerment based on the ‘degree of infringement of legal interests’.

Crimes of infringement are those where an actual infringement must occur for the crime to be considered committed.

Homicide is only established when someone is killed, and battery is only established when someone is injured.

On the other hand, in crimes of endangerment, the crime is considered committed even if only a dangerous state occurs.

For example, obstruction of business is one such crime. Let’s say I spread rumors to steal customers from a competing store.

If obstruction of business were a crime of infringement, I would only be punishable if I actually stole customers from the competing store.

However, if it were a crime of endangerment, it could be considered obstruction of business from the moment I spread the rumors, as it created ‘a risk of losing customers’.

In short, the conditions for punishment are more lenient.

Now let’s look at option 2.

‘It’s true that intimidation is a crime of endangerment. Once there has been an act of intimidation, as long as there’s a possibility of the other party feeling fear, the crime of intimidation is established regardless of whether they actually felt fear.’

From that perspective, it seems like a correct option.

It’s an option that asks whether you accurately understand the concept of crime of endangerment and the type of crime intimidation is.

But this darn professor has set another trap.

‘Wait, the other party didn’t perceive it or recognize the meaning of the harm?’

If I threatened someone, but they didn’t hear me, or even if they heard me, they didn’t understand what I meant.

In those cases, there’s actually no ‘possibility of feeling fear’, is there?

If the danger itself hasn’t been caused, it can’t be considered a crime.

You could say it’s a sneaky option that creates a wrong answer by manipulating a single expression, but in a way, it’s also a question that filters out those who have just mechanically memorized the definition of crime of endangerment.

You could only identify the wrong answer if you accurately understood and thought about the meaning of a dangerous state.

‘Okay. Number 2 is wrong.’

Since the question asks to choose the incorrect statement, we can just mark number 2 and move on.

If this were a self-study session, I would have carefully considered options 1 and 3, thinking about the meaning of continuous and instantaneous crimes, but I didn’t have time for that now.

‘Besides, all the options are from past exams anyway.’

Options 1 and 3 are both options that copied the precedent’s conclusion verbatim.

I could judge them immediately since I had read them countless times.

Next question.

[Question 2. Choose the correct statement regarding the following case (in case of dispute, follow the precedent).]

• At around 9:40 PM, A was driving on the road with his fiancée in his car. Then, B, who was drunk and waiting for a taxi on the sidewalk, mistook A’s car for a taxi, stepped into the road, stopped A’s car, and tried to get in.

• When A blocked B, B grabbed A’s pants, pulled them, causing them to rip, and then dragged A, causing them both to fall. A held down B’s hands and subdued him for about 3 minutes until the police arrived at the scene after being called by A’s fiancée.

‘…What is this?’

In Civil Law multiple-choice questions, there were sometimes questions that gave a scenario and asked for judgment, but in Criminal Law, most questions asked to judge the truth or falsehood of statements or to choose all the correct answers among ‘a, b, c, d, e’.

This type of question wasn’t a common style.

But there was no need to panic. Rather, this kind of question was often easier to solve than others if you thought about it a little.

‘Considering the scope of the syllabus, this is probably a question about self-defense.’

B is committing actions that seem illegal at first glance, such as tearing A’s pants and making him fall.

This question is about judging whether A’s act of subduing B can be recognized as self-defense.

‘What are the requirements for self-defense to be recognized?’

— Article 21 of the Criminal Act (Self-Defense) ① An act done to defend oneself or another person’s legal interest from an immediate illegal infringement is not punishable.

Recalling the article on self-defense, we can easily extract the requirements.

First, an immediate illegal infringement. The infringement must be happening right now, and it’s no longer recognized if you’ve already escaped the danger of infringement.

And an act done ‘to defend’, that is, the intent to defend and the act of defense resulting from that intent.

It must be an act done with the intention of protecting yourself or someone else.

You can’t recognize self-defense in a situation where you just hit someone for fun, and it turns out that person was an assassin hiding a weapon to kill you.

The last requirement is not written in the article but is required by precedent.

It’s ‘proportionality’. To be more specific, it gets a bit complicated, but in short, it means that if you’re in danger of being hit with bare fists, you can’t shoot the other person in the head with a gun.

An act of defense is only recognized if it’s done in a way that’s generally considered reasonable, appropriate, and proportionate.

This was the number one reason why self-defense was denied in reality.

An article about a mother who strangled a robber to death to save her child and wasn’t granted self-defense.

It’s a story you can come across quite easily, isn’t it?

Of course, it wasn’t a legal interpretation I particularly liked.

But regardless of whether it was right or wrong, since the question stated ‘in case of dispute, follow the precedent’, I had to choose the option according to the precedent.

‘Alright. Let’s focus on the question for now.’

I shifted my gaze to the options.

① In the case above, since the act of attack and the act of defense are performed consecutively, and A’s act of defense has the dual nature of also being an act of attack, it is difficult to isolate A’s act and consider it as falling under self-defense.

② A must prove that his act falls under self-defense or justifiable act, but the proof does not have to be based on strict evidence with probative value that leaves no room for doubt for the judge.

③ If B is indicted for assault and, during the trial, claims that he has no recollection due to being completely drunk at the time of the crime and denies intent, while also claiming that he was in a state of insanity, the court must specify its judgment on this when convicting B.

‘This is crazy!’

Option 1 wasn’t that difficult. Legally, self-defense could include not only defensive actions but also active offensive actions.

It was only when the offensive action was ‘too excessive’ and lost its proportionality that self-defense was denied.

The problem was options 2 and 3.

‘These are procedural law issues!’

The two options blatantly included content covered in Criminal Procedure.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable since it was related to the discussion of self-defense, but the problem was that we hadn’t learned it yet.

It couldn’t be solved with the knowledge learned at the first-year level.

Unless you were someone like Shin Seo-joon, who had already mastered Criminal Procedure, it was natural not to even understand what was being asked.

However,

‘It’s number 3, this one.’

I was the exception.

Although I hadn’t yet completed my review of procedural law, these options were added to the self-defense page in my ‘Summary of Criminal Law’.

Because it had appeared in the bar exam.

I remember it being included in a question about self-defense.

We take exams divided by syllabus, but the bar exam isn’t like that.

If the topics are related, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, or Civil Law and Civil Procedure, are often intertwined within a single question.

Perhaps Jang Yong-hwan was asking us to become familiar with such situations.

‘He’s a tough one, that’s for sure.’

But that’s also what made it more interesting.

‘This is number 3. You’re number 2. Wait, is this another trap pretending to use the exact wording of the precedent?’

I continued to solve the problems.

Each question was plastered with traps that could easily trip you up if you weren’t careful, but they couldn’t fool me.

My hand gained momentum as I checked the answers, flipping through the pages without hesitation.

Some might fear exams, but for me, these moments were the most enjoyable highlights of studying law.

Even for me, the process of conquering thick law books wasn’t easy.

I couldn’t just skim through them like a novel; I had to accurately absorb the meaning of each and every letter and memorize them until I could reproduce them.

That was naturally tiring, difficult, and painful.

But if you endure the time of hardship properly, rewards await.

The moment of confirmation. The moment of proof.

It was a glorious stage where I could proudly declare that the time I spent wasn’t wasted, that it had become my flesh and blood, and that I had progressed.

That was what an exam was.

“Whew…”

Finally, after checking the answer to the last question, I let out a held breath.

I was so focused that my back was drenched in sweat, and my fingers were marked red from gripping the pen too tightly.

Filled with a satisfying sense of exhaustion, I walked out with the exam paper and stood in front of the teaching assistant.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes? What?”

The teaching assistant asked with a worried voice as I handed him the exam paper.

Did I look that sick? I was just a bit tired from concentrating, I wasn’t feeling unwell.

But I soon realized that he had misunderstood something.

“As the professor said, the results of this multiple-choice exam will be reflected in your grades. You shouldn’t just solve it carelessly and hand it in.”

“…?”

‘What’s wrong with this guy?’

There was no way I would solve the exam carelessly and hand it in.

As I looked at him with that in mind, the teaching assistant awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“Oh, no… that’s not what I meant. Please give it here.”

Now, not just the teaching assistant, but all the students who were solving the problems were looking at me.

Some seemed dumbfounded, others wore expressions of disbelief.

Wondering why these people were acting this way, I finally followed the teaching assistant’s gaze and looked at the electronic clock on the table.

[14:50]

Less than 50 minutes had passed since the start.

…It was an overwhelming first place.