Crim Midterms
Crim Midterms
Circumstances
a. Unlawful aggression
Aggression is considered unlawful when it is unprovoked or
unjustified. There must be real danger to life or personal safety.
An imminent danger of aggression, and not merely imaginary, is
sufficient. A slap on the face is actual unlawful aggression. (Dec.,
Sup. Ct. of Spain, March 8, 1887)
2. Defense of Relative
Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouses,
ascendants, descendants, or legitimate or adopted brothers or
sisters, or of his relatives by affinity in the same degrees, and
those by consanguinity within the fourth civil degree, and in case
the provocation was given by the person attacked, that the one
making the defense had no part therein. (Art. 11, Par. 2)
Even if two persons agreed to fight, and at the moment when one
was about to stab the other, the brother of the latter arrived and
shot him, defense of relative is present as long as there is an
honest belief that the relative being defended was a victim of an
unlawful aggression, and the relative defending had no knowledge
of the agreement to fight. (US v. Esmedia 17 Phil. 280)
3. Defense of Stranger.
Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger
and that the person defending be not induced by revenge,
resentment, or other evil motive. (Art. 11, Par. 3)
A person who struggled with the husband who was attacking his
wife with a bolo for the possession of the bolo and in the course
of the struggle, wounded the husband, was held to have acted in
defense of a stranger. (People v. Valdez, 58 Phil. 31)
4. State of Necessity
Any person who, in order to avoid an evil or injury, does an act
which causes damage to another. (Art. 11, Par. 4)
5. Fulfillment of duty
Any person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful
exercise of a right or office. (Art. 11, Par. 5) The injury caused or
the offense committed is the necessary consequence of the due
performance of such right or office.
2. MINORITY
A person under nine (9) years of age. (Art. 12, Par. 2) In this case,
the minor is completely devoid of discernment and are
irresponsible.
A persons over nine (9) years of age but under fifteen (15), unless
he has acted with discernment, in which case, such minor shall be
proceeded against in accordance with the provisions of Art. 80
[Repealed by PD 603]. (Art. 12, Par. 3)
3. ACCIDENT
Any person who, while performing a lawful act with due care,
causes injury by mere accident without fault or intention
of causing it. (Art. 12, Par. 4)
Its requisites are:
7. ABSOLUTORY CAUSES.
These are instances which actually constitute a crime but by
reason of public policy and sentiment, it is considered to be
without liability and no penalty is imposed, like:
Specific circumstances:
1. PRIVILEGED MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES OF
INCOMPLETE JUSTIFYING OR EXEMPTING
CIRCUMSTANCES.
Those mentioned in the preceding chapter, when all the
requisites necessary to justify the act or to exempt from criminal
liability in the respective cases are not attendant. (Art. 13, Par. 1)
4. SUFFICIENT PROVOCATION.
That sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended
party immediately preceded the act. (Art. 13, Par. 4)
The relationship between the offender and the victim of the grave
offense sought to be indicted must be legitimate. The grave
offense mentioned in this mitigating circumstance need not be a
felony or an act punished by law. The act of the victim in eloping
with the daughter of the accused is a grave offense to her family.
(People v. Diokno, supra) Also, the remarks of the victim in the
presence of the guests during a celebration that the accused lived
at the expense of his wife, under the circumstances, were highly
offensive to the accused or to any other person in his place.
(People v. Rosal, 66 Phil. 323) In determining the gravity of the
offense, the age of the accused, his social standing, the time and
place when the offense was committed and other attendant
circumstances are to be considered.
6. PASSION OR OBFUSCATION
That of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to
have produced passion or obfuscation. (Art 13, Par. 6)
c. Made before trial begins, that is, prior to the presentation of the
evidence by the prosecution. (Q5, 1997 Bar)
Mere offer to plead guilty to homicide under a charge of murder
is not sufficient. However, it is believed that if the offer to plead
guilty to homicide is predicated on the allegation that the killing
was not attended by any qualifying circumstance and the trial
court so found, thus convicting the accused only of homicide,
there is no valid reason why the accused should not be given the
benefit of the circumstance. (People v. Limosnero, 147 SCRA 232)
The offender actually knows that his act is unlawful, that it can
cause harm to another, but because of the illness he is suffering,
he cannot control himself. Thus, a person who has kleptomania
the urge to take anything may commit theft, knowing it to be
a crime, but cannot control himself. Other examples are (a) a
mother who killed her child after delivery as she was suffering
under the influence of a puerperal fever (Dec., Sup. Ct. of Spain,
Sept. 28, 1897); (b) acute neurosis that made the offender ill-
tempered and easily angered (People v. Carpenter, 4168, April 12,
1944) and (c) feeblemindedness. (People v. Formigenes, 87 Phil.
658)
10. ANALOGOUS MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES.
And, finally, any other circumstance of a similar nature and
analogous to those above mentioned. (Art. 13, Par. 10)
Examples:
Distinction:
Generic Qualifying
Specific circumstances:
1. TAKING ADVANTAGE OF OFFICIAL POSITION.
That advantage be taken by the offender of his public position.
(Art. 14, Par. 1)
It is not only necessary that the person committing the
crime be a public officer; he must also use the influence,
prestige or ascendancy which such office gives him as a means
by which he realizes his purpose. (People v. Yturriaga, 86 Phil.
534)
If the accused raped a girl who was entrusted to his care by the
parents, there is betrayal of confidence reposed upon him by the
parents but not an abuse of the confidence of the offended party
(People v. Crumb, 46 OG 6162) since the confidence between the
parties must be personal. But if the offender was the servant of
the family and sometimes took care of the child, whom she later
killed, there is present grave abuse of confidence. (People v.
Caliso, 58 Phil. 283)
Distinction:
Recidivism Habitual Delinquency
The term disguise refers to anything that the offender may use
to prevent recognition. If in spite of the disguise, the offender
was recognized, such cannot be aggravating. (People v. Sonsona,
8966, May 25, 1955)
16. TREACHERY
That the act be committed with treachery (alevosia). There is
treachery when the offender commits any of the crimes against
persons, employing means, methods, or forms in the execution
thereof which tend directly and specially to insure its
execution, without risk to himself arising from the defense
which the offended party might make. (Art. 14, Par. 16)
In parricide, treachery is a generic aggravating circumstance as
well as in homicide, if it is not alleged in the information.
But where the persons killed are children of tender years, being 1
year old, 6 years old and 12 years old, the killing is murder even
if the manner of the attack was not shown. (People v. Ganohon,
74670, April 30, 1991)
Alternative Circumstances
Alternative circumstances are those which must be taken into
consideration as aggravating or mitigating according to the
nature and effects of the crime and other conditions attending
its commission.
Specific circumstances:
1. RELATIONSHIP
It shall be taken into consideration when the offended party
is the spouse, ascendant, descendant, legitimate, natural, or
adopted brother or sister, or relative by affinity in the same
degree of the offender. (Art. 15)
2. INTOXICATION
As a general rule, intoxication is a mitigating circumstance. It must
be shown that at the time of the commission of the criminal act,
the accused has taken such quantity of alcoholic drinks to blur his
reason and deprive him of certain degree of control. (People v.
Boduso, 450, Sept. 30, 1974) Intoxication to be mitigating must
be proved to the satisfaction of the Court. (People v, Noble, 77
Phil. 93) It is aggravating only in two cases:
2. Accomplices
Those persons, who, not being principals, cooperate in the
execution of the offense by previous or simultaneous acts. (Art.
18)
The acts performed while material must not be
indispensable. Thus, where the accused is proven to have
merely assisted in guarding the detained persons to prevent
their escape, the accused should be held as an accomplice only
since the act performed by him was not indispensable. Ho
wever, if the person takes part in the conspiracy, he can never
be an accomplice.
3. Accessories
Those who, having knowledge of the commission of the crime,
and without having participated therein, either as
principals or accomplices, take part subsequent to its
commission in any of the following manners:
a. By profiting themselves or assisting the offender to profit by
the effects of the crime.
Buying a gold watch from another, knowing that it was
stolen property, the accessory assists the thief to profit by the
effects of the crime. The accessory should materially benefit from
the act. Riding in a stolen vehicle is not profiting since it does
not improve his economic position. Profiting is not synonymous
to intent to gain as an element of theft. (People v. Morales, 71 OG
529)