Title
People vs. Dominguez y Santos
Case
G.R. No. 229420
Decision Date
Feb 19, 2018
A deceased state witness's testimony in a carjacking-homicide case was ruled admissible by the Supreme Court, affirming its validity despite his death and incomplete cross-examination.
murder case
nullify order
strike off testimony

Case Summary (G.R. No. 229420)

Factual Background

On January 13, 2011, Venson Evangelista was abducted in Cubao, Quezon City and his charred remains were found the following day in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija; two suspects, Alfred Mendiola and Ferdinand Parulan, surrendered to the PNP and executed extrajudicial confessions implicating the respondents, which formed the basis of an Information for Carnapping with Homicide under Section 14, Republic Act No. 6539, docketed as Criminal Case No. Q-11-168431 before the Quezon City RTC.

Discharge Proceedings and Testimony of Mendiola

The prosecution moved to discharge Mendiola as an accused to become a state witness and, at a hearing on June 27, 2011, the court received Mendiola’s sworn statement and the defense conducted cross-examination limited to the discharge hearing; by Order dated September 29, 2011 the RTC granted the motion and expressly stated that “his testimonies given on June 27, July 8 and July 11, 2011 and all the evidence adduced in support of the discharge hereby form part of the trial of this case.”

Subsequent Death of the State Witness and Trial Court Query

Mendiola died on May 6, 2012, after which the RTC required position papers from the parties on whether the testimony he gave during the discharge proceeding should be admitted in chief notwithstanding his absence from trial proper; the trial court concluded that the June 27, 2011 testimony had been given only for the limited purpose of qualifying Mendiola as a state witness and ordered that testimony stricken from the record by Order dated January 10, 2014.

RTC Rationale for Striking Testimony

The RTC reasoned that the cross-examination at the discharge hearing was confined to issues pertinent to eligibility as a state witness and that Section 18, Rule 119 required the state witness to testify again at trial proper; non-presentation at trial would therefore deprive the accused of due process and the right to confront and cross-examine, leading the RTC to strike Mendiola’s testimony from the records while reserving ruling on documents he authenticated.

Court of Appeals Proceedings

The People sought relief in the Court of Appeals via a petition for certiorari under Rule 65; the CA found no grave abuse of discretion by the trial court and, in a Decision dated May 27, 2016 and a Resolution dated January 18, 2017, affirmed the RTC Orders striking the testimony, prompting the petition for review under Rule 45 to the Supreme Court.

Issue Presented to the Supreme Court

The narrow issue presented was whether the testimony of Alfred Mendiola given during the discharge proceeding should remain admissible in Criminal Case No. Q-11-168431 despite his death before trial proper and despite the defense’s reservation then to continue cross-examination at trial.

Positions of the Parties

The petitioner argued that the right to confront and cross-examine is not absolute and that respondents forfeited any right to further cross-examination by declining to continue subject questioning at the discharge hearing; respondent Jayson Miranda maintained that Section 18, Rule 119 required the state witness to testify again at trial proper and that failure to present him at trial deprived the respondents of the opportunity for full cross-examination, while other respondents either did not file comments or were deemed to have waived their right to be heard for procedural reasons.

Supreme Court’s Ruling

The Supreme Court granted the petition, reversed and set aside the CA Decision and Resolution, and reinstated the testimony of Alfred Mendiola as part of the records of Criminal Case No. Q-11-168431, while directing that documents and other evidence he authenticated be ruled upon by the RTC when formally offered in evidence.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

The Court relied on the plain language of Section 17, Rule 119, which declares that “evidence adduced in support of the discharge shall automatically form part of the trial,” and on Section 1(f), Rule 115, which allows the use of a deceased witness’s testimony given in another proceeding provided the adverse party had an opportunity to cross-examine; the Court held that the discharge hearing had been duly conducted, that Mendiola’s testimony satisfied the eligibility criteria in Section 17 and thus became part of the trial record upon the RTC’s grant of discharge, and that non-presentation of the witness at trial would only affect whether the discharge operates as an acquittal under Section 18, but does not render the discharge testimony altogether inadmissible.

Confrontation and Waiver Analysis

The Court applied the doctrine in People v. Seneris that an accused may impliedly waive the right to confront and cross-examine by failing to avail himself of an available opportunity; the Court found that counsel for the respondents conducted a rigorous and extensive cross-examination of Mendiola during the discharge hearing covering material particulars of the crime and the participation of each accused, that no timely objections to relevancy were made under Section 36, Rule 132, and that respondents’ reservation to continue cross-examination at trial did not negate the sufficiency of the opportunity they had to confront the witness.

Ev

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