SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's jailed former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has appealed his life sentence for rebellion over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024, his lawyers said Tuesday.
The conservative leader, who faces multiple trials over his power grab, expressed defiance following his conviction at the Seoul Central District Court last week. He called the decision illogical, said his actions were “solely for the sake of the nation and our people,” and accused the judge of being biased against him.
In a text message, Yoon’s lawyers said they aimed to address the supposed “errors in fact-finding and misinterpretations of the law” contained in last Thursday's ruling. The case will now be sent to a specialized panel at a Seoul High Court established under a law passed in December to handle cases involving rebellion, treason and foreign subversion.
“We will never be silent about what we view as an excessive indictment by a special prosecutor, the contradictory judgment rendered by the lower court based on that premise, and its political circumstances,” Yoon’s legal team said.
Yoon’s martial law decree, announced late at night on Dec. 3, 2024, lasted about six hours until a quorum of lawmakers broke through a blockade of heavily armed soldiers and police at the National Assembly. They then voted to overturn it, forcing his Cabinet to lift the measure.
Yoon was suspended from office on Dec. 14, 2024, after being impeached by the liberal-led legislature and was formally removed by the Constitutional Court in April 2025. He was re-arrested in July and now faces eight criminal trials over the martial law debacle and other allegations, with the rebellion charge carrying the heaviest punishment.
Though brief, Yoon’s martial law decree triggered the country’s most severe political crisis in decades, paralyzing politics and high-level diplomacy and rattling financial markets. The turmoil eased only after his liberal rival Lee Jae Myung won an early presidential election last June.
Yoon has claimed that his martial law decree was a legal and necessary act of governance against liberals controlling the legislature, portraying them as “anti-state” forces paralyzing state affairs by impeaching high-level officials, cutting his budgets and obstructing his agenda.
But the Seoul Central District Court said Yoon’s actions amounted to orchestrating a rebellion, ruling that he mobilized troops and police in an unlawful bid to seize the legislature, arrest political opponents and establish unchecked rule for a “considerable time.”
A special prosecutor who investigated Yoon’s rebellion charges had sought the death penalty, saying he deserved the harshest punishment under the law given the threat his actions posed to the country’s democracy. Following last week’s ruling, Jang Woo-sung, a member of the special prosecutor’s investigation team, hinted that they intended to appeal, saying they had unspecified “reservations” about some of the court’s factual findings and the severity of the sentence.
South Korea has not executed a death-row inmate since 1997, in what is widely seen as a de facto moratorium on capital punishment and popular calls for its abolition.
Yoon is the first former South Korean president to receive a life sentence since late military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for his 1979 coup, a bloody 1980 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju that left more than 200 people dead or missing, and corruption. The Supreme Court later reduced Chun’s sentence to life imprisonment, and he was released in late 1997 under a special presidential pardon.
FILE - South Korean lawmakers attend during a plenary session of the impeachment vote of President Yoon Suk Yeol at the National Assembly in Seoul, on Dec. 14, 2024. (Woohae Cho/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Participants react after hearing the news that South Korea's parliament voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)
FILE - Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, arrives at a court to attend a hearing to review his arrest warrant requested by special prosecutors in Seoul, South Korea, July 9, 2025. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America" during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Donald Trump with sufficient “negative firepower," according to a long-awaited post-election autopsy released on Thursday by the Democratic National Committee.
The committee's chair, Ken Martin, shared the 192-page report only after facing intense internal pressure from frustrated Democratic operatives concerned with his leadership. Martin had originally promised to release the autopsy, only to keep it under wraps for months because he was concerned it would be a distraction ahead of the midterms as Democrats mobilize to take back control of Congress.
On Tuesday, Martin apologized for his handling of the situation and conceded that the report was withheld because it “was not ready for primetime."
Although the autopsy criticizes Democrats' focus on “identity politics,” it sidesteps some of the most controversial elements of the 2024 campaign. The report does not address former President Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection, the rushed selection of Harris to replace him on the ticket or the party's acrimonious divide over the war in Gaza.
“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin wrote in an essay on Substack on Thursday. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it. But transparency is paramount.”
A spokesperson for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The initial reaction from Democratic operatives was a mix of bafflement and anger over Martin's handling of the situation.
“Why not say this in 2024, or bring in more people to finish it, instead of turning this into the dumbest media cycle for 7-8 months?” Democratic strategist Steve Schale wrote on social media.
The postelection report, which was authored by Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, calls for “a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone.”
“Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party,” the report says.
The autopsy points to a reduction in support and training for Democratic state parties, voter registration shifts and “a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters.”
Thursday's release comes as Martin confronts a crisis of confidence among party officials who are increasingly concerned about the health of their political machine barely a year into his term. Some Democratic operatives have had informal discussions about recruiting a new chair, even though most believe that Martin’s job wasn't in serious jeopardy ahead of the midterm elections.
The report found that Harris and her allies failed to focus enough on Trump's negatives, especially his felony convictions. This was part of a broader criticism that Democrats' messaging is too focused on reason and winning arguments, “even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.”
“There was a decision in the 2024 Democratic leadership not to engage in negative advertising at the scale required,” the report states. “The Trump campaign and supportive Super PACs went full throttle against Vice President Harris, but there was not sufficient or similar negative firepower directed at Trump by Democrats.”
The report continues: “It was essential to prosecute a more effective case as to why Trump should have been disqualified from ever again taking office. The grounds were there, but the messaging did not make the case.”
Trump's attack on Harris' transgender policies were cited as a key contrast.
Specifically, the report suggested the Democratic nominee was “boxed” in by the Trump campaign's “very effective” ad that highlighted Harris' previous statement of support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates.
Democratic pollsters believed that “if the Vice President would not change her position – and she did not – then there was nothing which would have worked as a response," the report said.
The report criticized Harris' outreach to key segments of America while condemning the party's focus on “identity politics.”
“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate. The math doesn’t work,” the report says. “You can’t lose rural areas by overwhelming margins and make it up elsewhere when rural voters are a significant share of the electorate. If Democrats are to reclaim leadership in the Heartland or the South, candidates must perform well in rural turf. Show up, listen, and then do it again.”
The report also references Democrats' underperformance with male voters of color.
“Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed. Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns, and don’t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color,” it says.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event about loosening a federal refrigerant rule, in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, May 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a fireside chat on Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
FILE - Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at DNC headquarters, Jan. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert, File)
