Abstract

The present paper was to recast the legal processes and decisions of crime from the perspective of social-cultural constructionism. The modus operandi of Korean juristic system has depended heavily on criminal realism, neglecting the social-cultural processes and dimensions involved in the definition and construal of criminality in the context of juristic verdict. Juristic activities of legal professionals working in court were conceived to be taken place in close knit with socio-cultural modes of thinking and judging. The 'working naive psychology', which is form of social-cultural psychology, of legal professionals were critically addressed in terms of its inter-reliability among professionals and ecological validity. Additionally, reports of mass media on crime cases socially issued, i.e., homicide, sexual harassment, kid-napping etc., were analysed to reveal that they are oriented toward consumerism instead of legal justice, that they tend to make a pre-decision before trial, and to induce public opinion to a particular direction before or in the middle of trial, ultimately exercising normative influence upon trial process and outcomes. Finally, an analysis of newspaper reports on the civil case of sexual harassment on Assistant Woo was made to support two major presumptions that; the newspaper reports are socio-culturally constructed and they are exerting significant influence upon trial.