G.R. No. 1540. April 08, 1905

In this case the defendants, after the judgment of the court below
was entered and the case removed to this court, made a motion here for
a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. This motion was
supported by affidavits showing that the complaining witness, Ruperto
Evaristo, since the judgment in the court below had been convicted of
bribery and was imprisoned in Bilibid, where these appellants were and
are confined, and that he stated to the persons making the affidavits
that the appellants were not the persons who made the assault upon him
for which they were arrested. This showing would be sufficient to
warrant us in granting a new trial.

But after an examination of the evidence already taken in the court
below we think that the claim of the defendants’ counsel in this court
that that evidence was not sufficient to convict them must be sustained.

The testimony of John W. Green, a detective in the employ of the
Government, to the effect that the defendant Ramos made a confession
before him, must be rejected, because in violation of section 4 of Act
No. 619 of the Commission. (United States vs. Isidoro Pascual,^[1] 1 Off. Gaz., 70G.)

The only other testimony in the case to show that the defendants
were the persons who committed the assault was the testimony of
Evaristo himself. He was a detective in the employ of the Government,
and upon coming out of a small Chinese store at night, near San Lazaro,
he was set upon by three men, armed with bolos and a revolver, and very
severely injured. He testifies that the attack was made upon him almost
instantly upon his coming out of this store; that the only light was
that furnished by a lamp in the inside of the store. Evaristo did not
know these defendants before, but he claims to be able to identify them
from what he saw of them on the night in question. They were not
arrested until two months or more after the event, and their arrest
then was due to the fact that a cousin of Evaristo overheard Ramos say
to, one of Ramos’s friends that the man whom they had attacked at San
Lazaro had recovered. Upon this conversation being reported to Evaristo
he and another detective arrested these defendants. We are satisfied
that the identification of the defendants made by the complaining
witness at the trial is due not to the fact that he saw them with
sufficient distinctness upon the night in question so as to be able to
recognize them thereafter but to the fact that his cousin overheard the
conversation above narrated.

The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the defendants are acquitted, with the costs of this instance de oficio. So ordered.

Arellano, C. J., Torres, Mapa, and Carson, JJ., concur.

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^[1] 2 Phil. Rep., 457.