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People V Laurente
People V Laurente
Laurente et al
G.R. No. 116734 March 29, 1996
Laurente and Crispulo helped, conspired willfully, unlawfully rob Herminiano G. Artana
of his earnings along F. Concepcion St. Brgy. San Joaquin, Pasig, Metro Manila. The victim was
strangled with a leather belt and hit him with a blunt instrument causing him to sustain physical
injuries which caused directly caused his death.
A conducted crime scene search found a brown wallet containing an SSS (Social Security
System) ID of Larry Laurente and a leather belt used for strangling.
Myra Guinto testified that she saw people scrambling inside a yellow taxicab at stop position,
then three men left the taxicab and identified that Laurente was one of them.
The trial court promulgated the challenged decision which it was found that Laurente is guilty
beyond reasonable doubt of highway robbery with homicide punishable by death unter President
Decree No. 532 entitled Anti-Piracy and Anti-Highway Robbery Law of 1974.
Issue:
Whether Laurente is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of P.D.No. 532 or the Anti-Piracy and
Anti-Highway Roberry Law of 1974?
Ruling:
No. The case at bar is not a crime of highway robbery with homicide under Pres. Decree 532
but a crime of robbery under the Article 249 provisions of the Revised Penal Code.
SC remained that the coincidental fact that the robbery in the present case was
committed inside a car which, in the natural course of things, was casually operating on
a highway, is not within the situationby Section 2(e) of the decree in its definition of
terms. Besides, that particular provision precisely define[s] "highway
robbery/brigandage" and, as we have amply demonstrated, the single act of robbery
conceived and committed by appellants in this case does not constitute highway
robbery or brigandage.
WHEREFORE, the challenged decision of Branch 156 of the Regional Trial Court
of Pasig in Criminal Case No. 104785 is hereby modified as to the nature of the
offense committed. As modified, accused-appellant LARRY LAURENTE Y
BEJASA is found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, as co-principal by direct
participation, of the crime of Homicide, defined and penalized under Article 249
of the Revised Penal Code, and applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, said
accused-appellant LARRY LAURENTE Y BEJASA is hereby sentenced to suffer
an indeterminate penalty ranging from Ten (10) years of prision mayor medium,
as minimum, to Seventeen (17) years and Four (4) months of reclusion
temporal medium, as