PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES VS. RACAL

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES VS. RACAL    

G.R. No. 224886 

September 04, 2017 

 

FACTS: 

The accused, armed with a knife, with deliberate intent, with treachery and evident premeditation, and with intent to kill, did then and there, suddenly and unexpectedly, attack, assault, and use personal violence upon Jose Francisco by stabbing the latter inflicting a fatal wound resulting to his death. Racal, on his part, did not deny having stabbed Francisco. However, he raised the defense of insanity. He presented expert witnesses who contended that he has a predisposition to snap into an episode where he loses his reason and thereby acts compulsively, involuntarily and outside his conscious control. Under this state, the defense argued that Racal could not distinguish right from wrong and, thus, was not capable of forming a mental intent at the time that he stabbed Francisco. The RTC ruled against Racal. MR was denied. The CA upheld the conviction of Racal. 

ISSUE: 

Whether the CA correctly upheld the conviction of Racal for murder.  

RULING: 

Yes, the CA correctly upheld the conviction of Racal for murder.  

Murder is defined and punished by Article 248 of the RPC, as amended by Republic Act No. 7659, to wit:  

Article 248. Murder. - Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another, shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished by reclusion perpetua, to death if committed with any of the following attendant circumstances:  

1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity;  

2.  With evident premeditation;  

The SC held that the prosecution was able to clearly establish the elements of murder in this case; (1) Francisco was stabbed and killed; (2) appellant stabbed and killed him; (3) Francisco's killing was attended by the qualifying circumstance of treachery as testified to by prosecution eyewitnesses; and, (4) the killing of Francisco was neither parricide nor infanticide. 

Paragraph 16, Article 14 of the RPC defines treachery as the direct employment of means, methods, or forms in the execution of the crime against persons which tend directly and specially to insure its execution, without risk to the offender arising from the defense which the offended party might make. The essence of treachery is that the attack is deliberate and without warning, done in a swift and unexpected way, affording the hapless, unarmed and unsuspecting victim no chance to resist or escape. 

In order for treachery to be properly appreciated, two elements must be present: (1) at the time of the attack, the victim was not in a position to defend himself; and (2) the accused consciously and deliberately adopted the particular means, methods, or forms of attack employed by him. These elements are extant in the facts of this case and as testified to by the prosecution witnesses. To emphasize, the victim, Francisco, was caught off guard when appellant attacked him. As testified to by a prosecution witness, Francisco was then holding a plastic container containing bread and was eating. The stealth, swiftness and methodical manner by which the attack was carried out gave the victim no chance at all to evade when appellant thrust the knife to his torso. Thus, there is no denying that appellant's sudden and unexpected onslaught upon the victim, and the fact that the former did not sustain any injury, evidences treachery. Also, the fact that appellant was facing Francisco when he stabbed the latter is of no consequence. Even a frontal attack could be treacherous when unexpected and on an unarmed victim who would be in no position to repel the attack or avoid it, as in this case.  

On the defense of insanity, the SC cited the case of People v. Estrada in which it discussed the classical theory on which our penal code is mainly based, the basis of criminal liability is human free will. Man is essentially a moral creature with an absolutely free will to choose between good and evil. When he commits a felonious or criminal act (delito doloso), the act is presumed to have been done voluntarily, i.e., with freedom, intelligence and intent. Man, therefore, should be adjudged or held accountable for wrongful acts so long as free will appears unimpaired. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the law presumes that every person is of sound mind and that all acts are voluntary. The moral and legal presumption under our law is that freedom and intelligence constitute the normal condition of a person. This presumption, however, may be overthrown by other factors; and one of these is insanity which exempts the actor from criminal liability. 

The Revised Penal Code in Article 12 (1) provides: 

ART. 12. Circumstances which exempt from criminal liability. The following are exempt from criminal liability: 

1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval. The accused must be "so insane as to be incapable of entertaining a criminal intent." Since the presumption is always in favor of sanity, he who invokes insanity as an exempting circumstance must prove it by clear and positive evidence. And the evidence on this point must refer to the time preceding the act under prosecution or to the very moment of its execution. Circumstantial evidence, if clear and convincing, suffices; for the unfathomable mind can only be known by overt acts. Here, the defense failed to overcome the presumption of sanity. The psychiatric evaluations of Racal were taken after the crime was committed. An inquiry into the mental state of the accused should relate to the period immediately before or at the very moment the felony was committed. Furthermore, appellant's act of treachery, that is by employing means and methods to ensure the killing of Francisco without risk to himself arising from the defense which the victim might make, as well as his subsequent reaction of immediately fleeing after his commission of the crime and, thereafter, evading arrest, is not the product of a completely aberrant mind. Evidence points to the fact that appellant was not suffering from insanity immediately before, simultaneous to, and even right after the commission of the crime. 

The Court likewise did not uphold the mitigating circumstances of sufficient provocation on the part of the offended party and voluntary plea of guilt on the part of appellant. 

With respect to the alleged mitigating circumstance of sufficient provocation on the part of Francisco, the rule is that, as a mitigating circumstance, sufficient provocation is any unjust or improper conduct or act of the victim adequate enough to excite a person to commit a wrong, which is accordingly proportionate in gravity. 

Here, appellant asserts that several days before he stabbed the victim, the latter teased appellant to be "gay" and taunted him that the girl whom appellant courted rejected him. The SC ruled that for sufficient provocation to apply, three requisites must be present: 

a) provocation must be sufficient; b) it must be immediate to the commission of the crime; and c) it must originate from the offended party. "Sufficient" according to jurisprudence means adequate to excite a person to commit the crime and must accordingly be proportionate to its gravity. The SC cited the case of Bautista v. Court of Appeals in which it ruled that the mitigating circumstance did not apply since it is not enough that the provocating act be unreasonable or annoying. Certainly, calling a person gay as in this case is not the sufficient provocation contemplated by law that would lessen the liability of the accused. 

"Immediate" on the other hand means that there is no interval of time between the provocation and the commission of the crime. Here, the taunting done by the victim occurred days before the stabbing incident hence the immediacy required by law was absent. Anent the supposed voluntary plea of guilt on appellant's part, it is settled that a plea of guilty made after arraignment and after trial had begun does not entitle the accused to have such plea considered as a mitigating circumstance. 

 As such, the SC affirmed the decision of the CA finding accussed-appellant Racal guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Murder.  

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