Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ThingsComeAround]

[northway]

[Koreadays]

the prosecutors need evidence. if they are going for the cctv footage as their hard evidence then the accused had better be on it , and I mean without a doubt facial shot of him or they have nothing.
do they have a confession?
finger prints?

one guys witness is not enough, there needs to be more than that
otherwise he will be released or the prosecutors will ask the judge to keep him in jail for more time while they gather more evidence.
or the judge might say .. NO, there is no real evidence to find and just drop the case.

can the OP tell us more of what's going on, what's happened and what the charges and evidence against him and has the guy confessed to anything?

[julian_w]

No, the OP can't tell you all of those details, but he/she/it can tell you some of them.

Firstly, no, Andre Michael Fisher has not confessed, and though i am yet to speak with him face to face, i hope to do so soon, and should i get that opportunity i shall report back to you. Meantime, it seems pretty clear that he strongly professes his complete innocence, and is further strongly supported in that line by his friends, three of whom he was with the evening of the accusation by the taxi driver.

Secondly, what's going on is that the family back in the USA known by the name of Fisher, who seem to be fine upstanding pillors of their local community for example by way of coaching local school teams etc., were so completely trusting of the innocence of their son and brother that they did not for a second believe that he could in any way be guilty. This was the case to the huge extent that being people of faith in the spirit of love, goodness, and shared humanity, they did not take seriously the risk that the Korean 'justice system' could find any fault in him and so since the charges were initially laid in January or early February they have done little to create support for his case.

My impression is that the news that he has been convicted developed just recently, much to their obvious shock, horror, and dismay, and they are desperately seeking understanding of the situation, support, and guidance from any source or soul. This has become particularly important since the latest news as of yesterday is that his appeal date was set for August the 9th.

I am unaware of the exact charges nor even the nature of them, other than that they involve the sum of w88,000, and some local store of some sort, and, that some apparently random taxi driver walked up to Andre Michael Fisher as he was standing on the street outside a night club after midnight with his friends and pointed him out to some police officers, who then proceeded to beat him, 'arrest' him, and take him down to the local police station.

The only evidence i know is the same as you so far, if you've seen the news reports linked to in the first post above, namely, some video footage, i presume taken from a CCTV camera in the store. It was, apparently, of a person wearing a hoody. Other camera footage from those out on the street were not, apparently, available, despite Andre's request to view them or for them to be viewed. I know of no reason why this is the case. The family have not seen any footage or frames of the video evidence. I have not asked them yet as to whether they have asked for this. I do know, however, that they say that they are not getting much cooperation from the local military, of which Andre was a part.

The lack of support from the military does not mean much to me, however, as this country is, as we all know, in a particularly weird political space, and remains fairly uniquely so within our shared sweet globe. This is fairly evident in the actions, inactions, and results of the 'mad-cow riots' at the time of the Korea/USA FTA, the lack of support for Stephannie White in her dealings with both the gamut of local authorities and her locally based national representatives (from the USA) over the obvious murder of her son Michael White (RIP), the lack of overt international governmental support despite the equally absurd blaming of the captain and the first mate of the Hebei Spirit for the Taean oil spill of 2007, and a whole list of other 'smaller' though equally disturbing such events concerning expats.

Most recently and locally to me such incidents have involved confrontations between expats and taxi drivers. Without wanting to get into details and without aportioning blame, it remains fair to say that after having spent nearly nine years here, this is the first time such a trend involving conflict between expats and taxi drivers has been so obvious to me. ... ie. It's weird.

So yeah, i'm interested in learning all the details of the evidence and the eventual outcome too. In the meantime, going on past examples such as those listed above, and a bit of knowledge that the culture of this land (which in many ways i love a lot), many aspects of this culture are often far removed from a meritocracy, and it seems that this also often applies to questions of 'truth' and 'honesty'.

Finally, whether he's innocent or not, he could probably do with a heap of support while on the inside of any such Korean institution as one from which he can gain no freedom.

[madoka]

[julian_w]

[CentralCali]

To add to what madoka just posted, for the US military personnel who are charged, unless it's a serious crime such as rape or murder, they are detained by the US military who then ensure the accused party is present at all inquiries and trial. In addition, a US military legal officer (who's an actual lawyer, not just someone assigned this as an additional duty) is present at the trial. If there are any irregularities at the trial, the military's Judge Advocate General won't keep quiet about that. There are procedures for that in the SOFA.

As to the actual charges, see my posting of Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:59 pm. Fisher was convicted of "Robbery" and "Damage to Public Property." A taxi is not public property, so the robbery charge covers his theft in that incident. Police officers are not public property (nor are all of them lazy) so the damage to public property must refer to some kind of vandalism. The "beat down," as madoka mentioned, was likely as a result of Fisher's resisting arrest.

Fisher's friends and family back home do not know what he's done over here. Nor do any of us unless we were present at the incidents in question. As it stands now, the man was charged, tried, represented at trial by an actual lawyer, and convicted and sentenced by an actual court in a democracy. Fisher's friends and family are the ones saying there was no evidence. Evidently, the court disagreed. Now, I know a fair number of posters cast dispersion here against Korea, but the police don't just cart you off without substantiation. Sorry, OP; I'm just not seeing injustice here. I may be wrong and the court may be wrong. You'll have to have something more than "His friends back home who knew him in high school don't believe this" to convince the appellate court. And it's the Korean courts who get to decide this issue, not his team-mates back in the US.

[Hiromi C]

[hubbahubba]

[CentralCali]

hubbahubba: Many thanks.

[julian_w]

@ CentralCali: Yeah, nicely put. Except for the implication that i'm saying i believe anything about whether Andre Michael Fisher is innocent or guilty.

Let me make it even more simple and clear. I AM saying:
1.) it's an interesting case, worth watching merely for interest's own sake, and
2.) there has been a fairly extraordinary recent history of tangles involving the law, taxi drivers, and expats in this country, and
3.) there IS a history of expats getting a rough ride within the 'justice' system in this land, and
4.) whether Andre Michael Fisher is innocent or guilty by anyone's definition in any given context, he could probably still do with a bit of support, as do and will do his family, and
5.) even our own legal systems are less than perfect, so, however much we want to support and apologize for Korea or our own lands of origins having great examples of 'justice' systems, there is a possibility, however remote we're able to agree on it, that 'they' got the wrong guy.

(... Whew!)

Thanks for the opportunity to make this clearer! Sorry if i gabbled on a bit too much last night. (A wee drop of OB tends to make me do that sometimes.)

[julian_w]

For the sake of the moderators and anyone interested in following this case and story further: i'll post updates to this newer thread:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=208782

Please have a nice weekend.

[madoka]

[julian_w]

@ MadOkA:

IMHO, you're Korean, and don't want to believe one single woman acting for the most part quite alone has shown up the Korean 'justice' system, and then some.

[madoka]