Special Penal Laws Update Part 21

DEATH PENALTY LAW

(RA 7659)

 PROSTITUTES CAN BE A VICTIM OF RAPE

As to the suggestion that ANALIZA was a prostitute, that alone, even if it be conceded, cannot absolve him of his liability for rape. First, prostitutes can be victims of rape.  (People v. Alfeche)

REASON WHY DWELLING

IS AN AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCE

Dwelling is considered an aggravating circumstance because primarily of the sanctity of privacy the law accords to human abode. The dwelling need not be owned by the victim.  Thus, in People v. Basa,  dwelling was appreciated, although the victims were killed while sleeping as guests in the house of another. As aptly stated in People v. Balansit:  “[O]ne does not lose his right of privacy where he is offended in the house of another because as [an] invited guest [or a housemaid as in the instant case], he, the stranger, is sheltered by the same roof and protected by the same intimacy of life it affords. It may not be his house, but it is, even for a brief moment, “home” to him. He is entitled to respect even for that short moment.”  (People v. Alfeche)

WHEN RELATIONSHIP IS NOT AN

ALTERNATIVE CIRCUMSTANCE

UNDER ART. 15 OF THE RPC

Clearly then, the father-daughter relationship in rape cases, or between accused and Relanne, in this case, has been treated by Congress in the nature of a special circumstance which makes the imposition of the death penalty mandatory. Hence, relationship as an alternative circumstance under Article 15 of the Revised Penal Code, appreciated as an aggravating circumstance, should no longer be applied in view of the amendments introduced by R.A. No. 7659. It may be pointed, however, that without the foregoing amendment, relationship would still be an aggravating circumstance in the crimes of rape (Article 335) and acts of lasciviousness (Article 336). 57

If relationship in the instant case were to be appreciated under Article 15 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty imposable on accused then would not be death, but merely reclusion perpetua for, assuming that Relanne’s testimony in court would have confirmed what she narrated in her sworn statement (Exhibit “C”), no circumstance then attended the commission of the rape which could bring the crime under any provision of Article 335 which imposes a penalty higher than reclusion perpetua or of reclusion perpetua to death.  (People v. Manyuhod, Jr.)

WHEN OFFENDER IS STEP GRANDPARENT,

HE IS NOT CONSIDERED AN ASCENDANT

UNDER RA 8353 AND RA 7659

The trial court has thus held incorrectly in considering appellant, who is legally married to Roxan’s natural grandmother, as among those named in the enumeration. Appellant is merely a step-grandparent who obviously is neither an “ascendant” nor a “step-parent” of the victim. In the recent case of People vs. Atop, 24 the Court rejected the application of the mandatory death penalty to the rape of a 12-year old victim by the common-law husband of the girl’s grandmother. The Court said:

“It is a basic rule of statutory construction that penal statutes are to be liberally construed in favor of the accused. Court’s must not bring cases within the provision of a law which are not clearly embraced by it. No act can be pronounced criminal which is not clearly made so by statute; so, too, no person who is not clearly within the terms of a statute can be brought within them. Any reasonable doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused.”

(People v. Deleverio)

RECLUSION PERPETUA IS LIGHTER THAN LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND IF ONE IS SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND LATER IMPOSED RECLUSION PERPETUA TO SAME OFFENSE, THE PENALTY THAT SHOULD BE IMPOSED IS RECLUSION PERPETUA

Since reclusion perpetua is a lighter penalty than life imprisonment, and considering the rule that criminal statutes with a favorable effect upon the accused have, as to him, a retroactive effect, the penalty imposable upon the accused should be reclusion perpetua and not life imprisonment.

        (People v. Latura)

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE IMPOSITION

OF THE DEATH PENALTY

Although its origins seem lost in obscurity, the imposition of death as punishment for violation of law or custom, religious or secular, is an ancient practice. We do know that our forefathers killed to avenge themselves and their kin and that initially, the criminal law was used to compensate for a wrong done to a private party or his family, not to punish in the name of the state.

The dawning of civilization brought with it both the increasing sensitization throughout the later generations against past barbarity and the institutionalization of state power under the rule of law. Today every man or woman is both an individual person with inherent human rights recognized and protected by the state and a citizen with the duty to serve the common weal and defend and preserve society.

One of the indispensable powers of the state is the power to secure society against threatened and actual evil. Pursuant to this, the legislative arm of government enacts criminal laws that define and punish illegal acts that may be committed by its own subjects, the executive agencies enforce these laws, and the judiciary tries and sentences the criminals in accordance with these laws.

Although penologists, throughout history, have not stopped debating on the causes of criminal behavior and the purposes of criminal punishment, our criminal laws have been perceived as relatively stable and functional since the enforcement of the Revised Penal Code on January 1, 1932, this notwithstanding occasional opposition to the death penalty provisions therein. The Revised Penal Code, as it was originally promulgated, provided for the death penalty in specified crimes under specific circumstances. As early as 1886, though, capital punishment had entered our legal system through the old Penal Code, which was a modified version of the Spanish Penal Code of 1870.    (People v. Echegaray)

WHY DEATH PENALTY IS NOT

 A CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

“The penalty complained of is neither cruel, unjust nor excessive. In Ex-parte Kemmler, 136 U.S., 436, the United States Supreme Court said that ‘punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death, but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life.'”

“as long as that penalty remains in the statute books, and as long as our criminal law provides for its imposition in certain cases, it is the duty of judicial officers to respect and apply the law regardless of their private opinions,”  and this we have reiterated in the 1995 case of People v. Veneracion.    (People v. Echegaray)

DEATH PENALTY WAS NOT

ABOLISHED BUT MERELY SUSPENDED

A reading of Section 19 (1) of Article III will readily show that there is really nothing therein which expressly declares the abolition of the death penalty. The provision merely says that the death penalty shall not be imposed unless for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes the Congress hereafter provides for it and, if already imposed, shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua. The language, while rather awkward, is still plain enough”.  (People v. Echegaray)

DEFINITION OF HEINOUS CRIMES

“. . . the crimes punishable by death under this Act are heinous for being grievous, odious and hateful offenses and which, by reason of their inherent or manifest wickedness, viciousness, atrocity and perversity are repugnant and outrageous to the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a just, civilized and ordered society.”  (People v. Echegaray)