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Article 12, RPC
Article 12, RPC
2. A child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall
be exempt from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an intervention
program pursuant to Section 20 of R.A. No. 9344.
Section 20, RA 9344 – If it has been determined that the child taken into custody is 15 yrs and below, the authority which
will have an initial contact with the child has the duty to immediately release the child to the custody of his/her parents or
guardian. Said authority shall give notice to the social welfare and development officer who will determine the appropriate
programs in consultation with the child and to the person having custody over the child. If the parents, guardian or
relatives cannot be located, or if they refuse to take custody, the child may be released to any of the following: a duly
registered nongovernmental or religious organization; a barangay official or a member of the Barangay Council for the
Protection of Children; a local social welfare and development officer; and when or where appropriate, the DSWD. If the
child referred to herein has been found by the Local Social and Development office to be abandoned, neglected or abused
by his parents, or in the event that the parents will not comply with the prevention program, the proper petition for
involuntary commitment shall be filed by the DSWD or the Local Social Welfare and Development Office pursuant to PD No.
603, otherwise known as ‘The Child and Youth Welfare Code”.
3. A child above fifteen (15) years but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be
exempt from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program, unless he/she has
acted with discernment, in which case, such child shall be subjected to the appropriate
proceedings in accordance with RA No. 9344.
The exemption from criminal liability herein established does not include exemption from civil
liability, which shall be enforced in accordance with existing laws.
4. Any person who, while performing a lawful act with due care, causes an injury by mere
accident without fault or intention of causing it.
6. Any person who acts under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater
injury.
7. Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some lawful or
insuperable cause.
Important:
• Circumstances mentioned are a matter of defense. Hence, the burden of proof lies upon the
defendant.
• In exempting circumstances, there is a crime committed BUT NO criminal liability.
○ Basis: absence of free will & voluntariness of the act
An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval
Evidence of Insanity.
• Refer to the time preceding the act to the very moment of its execution
○ Will not be acquitted if evidence points that insanity was subsequent to the commission
• When insanity is occasional or intermittent, presumption of its continuances does not arise
○ Example: when accused had lucid intervals, presumed that offense was committed in
one of them
○ Exception: person adjudged/declared insane or has been committed to hospital/asylum
are presumed to continue to be insane
• When defense of insanity is not credible, conviction follows
2. Schizophrenia
- Chronic mental disorder characterized by inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality
and often accompanied by hallucinations and delusions
3. Kleptomania
- 2 views:
Exempting Mitigating
• If theft is done due to one's mental disease or • If the mental disease/defect only
mental defect producing an irresistible impulse diminishes the exercise of one's
similar to that of being deprived/lost the power willpower and did not deprive him of the
of will to prevent oneself from doing the act consciousness of one's acts
• Ratio: lost the power of will=lost consciousness
of one's act
4. Epilepsy
- Chronic disease characterized by fits, occurring at intervals, attended by convulsive motions of
the muscles and loss of consciousness
- Take note: accused is not exempt from criminal liability if he claims to be epileptic but was not
shown that he was under the influence when he committed the offense
2. Pedophilia
- Sexual disorder wherein one has strong, recurrent and uncontrollable sexual and physical
fantasies about children and tries to fulfill
- Not insanity because the subject could distinguish between right and wrong
3. Amnesia
- Amnesia per se cannot be a defense to a criminal charge
- Exception: shown by competent proof that the accused did not know the nature and quality of
his action and that it was wrong
- Mere failure to remember is not proof of mental condition
A child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt
from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an intervention program pursuant to
General Rule: A child above 15 years but below 18 years of age shall likewise be exempt from
criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program
Exception: unless one has acted with discernment
- Burden of proof that a minor has acted with discernment falls to the prosecution
Discernment
- Mental capacity to understand the difference between right or wrong and the consequences
of the wrongful act
- Constitutes the exception to the exemption:
▪ Mental capacity to understand the difference between right and wrong
▪ Capacity should be determined by taking account all the facts and circumstances
▪ Appearance
▪ Attitude
▪ Comportment
▪ Behavior before & during the commission of act and during and after the trial
- Determined by:
▪ Ability to understand the moral & psychological components and its consequences
▪ Whether a child can be held responsible for such antisocial behavior
- Discernment & intent distinguished:
Intent Discernment
• Desired act of the person • Moral significance that a person ascribes to the act
• May not intend to harm • Aware of the consequences of his negligent act
SIMILARITY: Products of mental processes within a person
- Shown by:
1) Manner the crime was committed
2) Conduct of the offender after its commission
Determination of Age:
1) Certified true copy of Certificate of Live Birth (best evidence)
2) Baptismal certificates & school records or any pertinent document showing the date of birth
3) In the absence of 1&2 due to loss, destruction, unavailability:
○ Testimony of the child
○ Testimony of any member of the family by affinity or consanguinity pursuant to Sec. 40,
Rule 130 of the Rules of Evidence
○ Testimonies of the other persons
○ The physical appearance of the child
○ Other relevant evidence
Elements:
1. Performing a lawful act
2. Due care
3. Causes injury to another by mere accident
4. Without fault or intention of causing it
Accident
• Something that happens outside the sway of our will and lies beyond the bounds of humanly
foreseeable consequences
• Accident vs Negligence
Accident Negligence
• Fortuitive circumstance, event or happening • Failure to observe, for the protection of
• Event happening without any human the interest of another person, that degree
agency or event which under the of care, precaution, and vigilance which
circumstance is unusual or unexpected the circumstances justly demand
by the person to whom it happens
BOTH: Intrinsically contradictory, one cannot exist
with the other
Elements:
1. Compulsion by means of physical force
2. Physical force must be irresistible
○ Must produce an effect upon individual that despite one's resistance, such irresistible
force reduces him to a mere instrument
3. Physical force must come from a 3rd person
6. Any person who acts under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater injury.
Elements:
1. The threat which causes the fear is of an evil greater than or at least equal to, that which he
is required to commit
2. It promises an evil of such gravity and imminence that the ordinary man would have
succumbed to it
7. Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some lawful or
insuperable cause.
Elements:
1. Act is required by law to be done
2. Person fails to perform such act
3. Such failure was due to some lawful or insuperable cause
ON ABSOLUTORY CAUSES
• Instances where the act committed is a crime but for reasons of public policy and sentiment
there is no penalty imposed.
• Other absolutory causes in the RPC
○ Art 6 (spontaneous desistance)
○ Art. 20 (accessories who are exempt)
○ Art. 124 (violent insanity)
○ Art. 247 (death under exceptional circumstances)
○ Art. 280, paragraph. 3 (exceptions to trespass to dwelling)
○ Art. 332 (exempt from theft, swindling and malicious mischief)
○ Art. 334, par. 4 (marriage of the offender and the offended party in SARA (Seduction,
Abduction, Rape, Acts of Lasciviousness)
• Instigation vs Entrapment
Instigation Entrapment
• Instigator induces the would-be accused into the • Ways and means are resorted to for
commission of the offense and himself becomes the co- the purpose of trapping and capturing
principal the lawbreaker in the execution of his
criminal plan
• Absolutory cause; accused must be acquitted because • Not an absolutory cause; cannot bar
public policy requires the courts to do so the prosecution and conviction of the
law breaker
ON MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES
• Do not entirely free the actor from criminal liability but serve only to reduce the penalty
• Basis: diminution of either freedom of action, intelligence, or intent, or on lesser perversity of
the offender
• Classes:
Ordinary Mitigating Privileged Mitigating
Susceptible of being offset by any Cannot be offset by aggravating circumstances
aggravating circumstance
If not offset, produces only the effect of Produces the effect of imposing upon the
applying the penalty provided by law for the offender the penalty lower by one/ two
crime in its minimum period degrees than that provided by law
• ONLY reduce the penalty but do not change the nature of the crime