Korean Missionaries' Murder Case Pits Religion, Culture and Law

A fatal beating is usually recognized as one of the most intensely personal ways of killing someone. But was the slaying last summer of 53-year-old Kyung Jae Chung--which occurred during an hours-long rite to cast out demons--murder or a mistake?

The potentially precedent-setting decision rests with Superior Court Judge James A. Albracht, who is hearing the trial of two Korean missionaries accused of second-degree murder. The dead woman's husband of almost 20 years, minister Jae Whoa Chung, 44, and evangelist Sung Soo Choi, 41, face 15 years to life in state prison if they are convicted of the most serious charge.

The Chungs had been married since 1977. Both worked as missionaries in Bangladesh, sponsored by dozens of American churches, including Choong Hyun Mission Church in Glendale. They arrived in Los Angeles last June as part of an annual business trip to report back to their sponsors. They also had planned to attend a conference of Korean Pentecostals in Chicago before returning to the mission school they ran abroad.

Choi, a missionary in China, was also in Los Angeles visiting his sponsors, including Glendale Calvary Presbyterian Church. He had never met the Chungs before, when, during a July 3 prayer session at a private home, he determined that a demon dwelled within Kyung Chung. A healer herself, she had last undergone a demon-cleansing ritual three years earlier in Korea.

Her death July 4 has become the third court case stemming from a Korean exorcism in the United States, but the first to result in a murder trial.

An earlier fatality, in Oakland, was resolved last year with guilty pleas to manslaughter by two women who are now serving three-year prison terms. Religion experts say the only other parallel in modern times that they can recall is the case of an Appalachian snake handler prosecuted for murder after a child was bitten by a poisonous serpent and died.

To prove murder in the Chung death, the prosecution must demonstrate that the ministers' actions were so extreme, they held no regard for her life. For the past two weeks, Deputy Dist. Atty. Hank Goldberg has been laying out his case in traditional fashion, invoking all the usual police, legal and medical language.

His star witness is a Glendale church deacon who participated in the last of two rituals to rid the woman of demons. Jin Hyun Choi, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, is now on the witness stand. He faces a maximum four-year sentence if the judge finds he testified truthfully.

But the details of the case are so unusual they often seem to defy courtroom convention. Jin Choi, for example, has testified under oath that the demon itself warned the men it would not leave without killing Chung.

When the defense case begins this week, attorneys will try to weave culture, religion and personal histories into the testimony to show the judge what the defendants were thinking during a healing ritual turned deadly.

"What we're trying to establish is that, based upon their cultural background, this was not such an unreasonable behavior that they were engaged in," said lawyer Christopher Lee.

Exorcism--practitioners prefer the term "deliverance"--results in at least two deaths a year in South Korea, but prosecutions are almost unheard of there, Chin said.

Experts agree the trial could alter the legal landscape as Western notions of crime, responsibility and punishment are applied to the cultures and beliefs of new immigrants.

"This is a case that pushes the envelope," said Laurie Levenson, an associate dean at Loyola Law School. "It's a very interesting case because no matter what culture you come from, killing is usually wrong. These issues don't come up that often."

Levenson said the law is well settled on religious freedom as a defense. The government cannot regulate what a person believes, the law holds, but it can regulate actions that result in harm to others.

But, the law seems to allow cultural and religious testimony when it can enlighten a judge or jury on what a defendant might have been thinking at the time he or she killed.

Young-Hoon Lee, a professor at Soon Shin University near Seoul, claims to have exorcised demons, but says he never used violence. In a recent phone interview, he called the death of Kyung Chung "a very unfortunate incident," but said he was surprised the two ministers were on trial for murder.

"They did not do this on purpose to kill somebody. It just happened during the practices. My personal opinion is, they were mishandling the demon."

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THE DEFENSE

To the ministers who killed her--and even to the victim--the demons were real. One named 'Legion' prevailed, the accused say.