Case Digest (G.R. No. L-26185)
Case Digest (G.R. No. L-26185)
Facts:
The People of the Philippines v. Wilforiano Cesar alias Junior, G.R. No. L-26185, March 13, 1968, the Supreme Court En Banc, Bengzon, J.P., writing for the Court.The accused, Wilforiano Cesar alias Junior, was a student of St. Anthony’s Academy in Carmen, Bohol. On March 9, 1966, during the afternoon intermission he bought a notebook, drank two glasses of tuba offered by a friend, returned to class and thereafter, by the flagpole, stabbed Segundo Sarce, Jr., Acting Principal Teacher of the Academy. The victim died minutes after the wound was inflicted, according to the autopsy report.
Police responded, learned that the accused had fled, then went to the accused’s house where the father said he would surrender his son; a knife (Exhibit “A”) fell from the father’s trousers and the father identified it as the weapon used. The policemen then found the accused at his grandfather’s house, took him to municipal jail and locked him up. The trial court’s findings of fact were not disputed on appeal; the Office of the Solicitor General adopted them.
The accused was charged in the Municipal Court of Carmen with direct assault with murder, waived preliminary investigation and secured remand to the Court of First Instance (CFI) of Bohol. At arraignment on April 12, 1966 he pleaded not guilty, but on the date of trial, with the Fiscal’s conformity and by petition, he withdrew that plea and pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of direct assault with homicide and offered to pay damages. He proved his birth on May 27, 1948, establishing that he was 17 years, 9 months and 12 days old at the time of the offense.
The CFI convicted him of the complex crime of direct assault upon a person in authority with homicide and sentenced him, in a decision dated April 30, 1966, to an indeterminate penalty from twelve years and one day to fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, applying the mitigating circumstances of minority (special/privileged) and spontaneous plea of guilty (ordinary), imposed accessory penalties and ordered confiscation of the knife and damages of P7,500; he was credited one-half of preventive imprisonment from March 10, 1966. The accused appealed, raising as his sole issue the correct penalty to be imposed.
The appeal reached the Supreme Court by direct appeal from the CFI decision; the Court reviewed the penalty imposed and the proper method of applying mitigating circumstances and the Indeterminate Sentence Law.
Issues:
- What is the correct penalty to be imposed on the accused convicted of the complex crime of direct assault upon a person in authority with homicide?
Ruling:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Ratio:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Doctrine:
- (Subscriber-Only)