Amendments to Define Brigandage Crime and Duties

Act No. 1121 amends Act No. 518 (“An Act defining highway robbery or brigandage and providing for the punishment therefor”).
Act No. 1121 amends Act No. 781 (an Act concerning the organization of an Insular Constabulary and inspection of municipal police, and related amendatory Acts including Acts numbered 610, 618, and 619).
The Act expressly modifies the provisions of Section 1, Section 2, and Section 4 of Act No. 518.
The Act expressly adds a concluding rule to Section 5 of Act No. 781, treating municipal policemen as municipal officers for that section’s purpose.

The Act declares that “the public good requiring the speedy enactment” of the bill warrants expedited enactment under Section 2 of the Commission’s procedure law (passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred).

Section 1 amends Section 1 of Act No. 518 to define brigandage/highway robbery.
A “band of robbers” exists when three or more persons, conspiring together, form the band for specified purposes.
The prohibited purposes include stealing carabaos, cattle, horses, rice, or personal property of any description, or abducting persons either for extortion or for obtaining ransom, or for any other purpose.
The band must use force and violence and must be armed with deadly weapons “for this purpose.”
Every person “engaged in the original formation of the band” or “joining it thereafter” is deemed a highway robber/brigand upon conviction.

Section 1 provides that upon conviction, persons engaged in the original formation or later joining the armed band are punished by death or imprisonment for not less than twenty years, in the discretion of the court.

Section 2 amends Section 2 of Act No. 518 and provides that the prosecution need not prove that any particular member of the band has in fact committed robbery, theft, or abduction.
Conviction is justified when, from all evidence, it can be inferred beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was a member of the described armed band.

Section 3 amends Section 4 of Act No. 518 to punish knowing assistance to brigands as defined in Section 1.
Knowledge-triggered prohibited acts include:
- giving information to brigands on the movement of the police or Constabulary or other peace officers of the Government, or the forces of the United States Army when acting in aid of the Government;
- securing or receiving stolen property from brigands;
- procuring for brigands supplies of money, food, clothing, arms, ammunition, or other property of any kind, or furnishing the same to them;
- knowingly hiding, lodging, or harboring in one’s house, or assisting in the escape of members of such a band.
Upon conviction, the punishment is imprisonment for not less than ten years and not more than twenty years.

Section 4 amends Section 5 of Act No. 781 by adding that “Municipal policemen shall be deemed to be municipal officers for the purpose of this section.”
This deeming provision applies specifically to the purpose of Section 5 of Act No. 781.

Section 5 mandates expedited enactment under Section 2 of “An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws,” passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.
Section 6 provides the Act’s immediate effectiveness “on its passage.”