PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF, APPELLEE, VS. ANTONIO FAUSTO Y TOMAS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

People versus Fausto

The Case

People versus Fausto is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Antonio Fausto y Tomas for the killing of Doctor Antonio Casal, and the accused answered that he could not be held criminally liable because he was insane before and at the moment he committed the act. The case matters because it is the classic statement of how Philippine criminal law treats the defense of insanity: the presumption of sanity, the burden that lies on the accused, and the standard of proof that must be met before a mental condition will excuse an act that the law presumes to be voluntary.

Procedural History

The accused was tried in the Court of First Instance of Manila, which convicted him of murder qualified by evident premeditation, sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, ordered him to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of 5,000 pesos, and to pay the costs. While the case was pending, the trial court, upon the motion of the defense, ordered his confinement at the National Mental Hospital for observation and diagnosis, and he stayed there from October 1958 until March 1959. The accused appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Supreme Court. The defense admitted authorship of the killing, so the only question litigated on appeal was whether he was insane at the time of the commission of the crime.

Facts

At around eleven o'clock in the morning of August 7, 1957, Fernando Gonzales, a bodeguero at the Pujalte Warehouse in Manila, heard someone moaning. He looked inside the warehouse and found nothing, so he went outside, and there he saw the accused stabbing Doctor Antonio Casal, who was lying face up on the ground. Gonzales rushed inside to get his night stick. At about the same time, Detective Benito Carasco of the Manila Police Department, who was investigating a matter at the nearby Saint Joseph Hospital, heard a nun calling for a policeman. He ran to the entrance and saw the accused armed with a knife, shouting that he had killed him. The detective drew his pistol, ordered the accused to drop the knife, arrested him, and picked up the knife. The victim lay sprawled on the ground, covered with blood. The autopsy reported eighteen stab wounds, and death was due to profuse bleeding and shock from multiple slashing stab wounds.

The accused had worked as a laborer at the Magnolia Power Plant of the San Miguel Brewery, earning six pesos and fifty centavos a day, the sole support of his wife and seven children. He lost that job and was committed to the National Mental Hospital on June 27, 1956, at the instance of the deceased, Doctor Casal. He was discharged on July 9, 1956, against the advice of the hospital authorities, and his treatment was stopped. After his release he repeatedly tried to convince the deceased that he was well and to obtain the certification needed for re-employment, but his efforts were unavailing. He then decided to kill the man he believed was the cause of his unemployment.

Barely three hours after the killing, the accused gave a signed statement to a detective in which he narrated in detail how he had made up his mind the day before, boarded a bus from Guimba, Nueva Ecija, taken a taxi to the hospital, waited for the victim's car, approached him, made a last appeal for the certification, and stabbed him when the doctor refused and became angry. A few hours later he re-enacted the crime at the scene, pointing to the post where he had waited and demonstrating his position and that of the victim. The defense presented evidence of his earlier confinement and of his second confinement by court order, during which a psychiatrist reported schizophrenia with brain syndrome existing before and after the crime.

Issues

• Whether or not the accused was insane at the time of the commission of the crime, so as to be exempt from criminal liability.
• Whether or not the evidence of his mental condition before and after the killing is sufficient to overcome the legal presumption that a person who commits a crime is in his right mind.

Applicable Provisions

The decision rests on the presumption that punishable acts are voluntary, as declared in the Revised Penal Code:

Article 1. This Code shall be in force on and after the first day of January, 1932.

That opening article fixes the effectivity of the Code whose provisions on voluntariness the Court invokes, and the Court cites it together with Article 4, paragraph 1, which makes criminal liability attach to a felony committed by any person performing a voluntary act.

Article 4. Criminal liability shall be incurred: 1. By any person committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended.

Because the law presumes all acts and omissions punishable by law to be voluntary, the Court reasons that sanity is presumed and insanity must be proved by the accused.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the accused was not insane at the time of the killing and is therefore criminally liable. The burden of establishing mental incapacity rests upon the defendant, because the legal presumption is that a person who commits a crime is in his right mind, and the law presumes all acts and omissions punishable by law to be voluntary. If there is no sufficient or satisfactory evidence of mental incapacity when the crime was committed, the conclusion of fact must be the same presumption established by law, and the conclusion of law must be that the accused is criminally liable. The primary inquiry is whether sufficient convincing evidence, direct or circumstantial, has been presented to a degree that satisfies the judicial mind that the accused was insane at the time of the perpetration of the offense.

On the second issue, the Court held that the evidence fell short. It is permissible to receive evidence of the condition of a person's mind a reasonable period both before and after the act, but here that evidence did not establish insanity. The first confinement lasted only thirteen days, more than a year before the crime, and the trial court doubted that a proper diagnosis could be reached in so short a period, especially since the patient was coherent, neat, recognized his wife, and attended to his own needs. The findings of the psychiatrist during the second confinement were made more than a year after the crime, while the accused was in detention, troubled by conscience and by the bleak future of his children, and those findings showed that his illness affected only his personality and not his brain. His detailed statement three hours after the killing, his re-enactment at the scene, and his strong motive all showed a mind that reflected, planned, and executed. The Court affirmed the conviction for murder qualified by evident premeditation, and held that treachery attended the attack because it was too sudden and unexpected to allow any defense, but that this was offset by the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender, so it could not be taken to aggravate or increase the penalty.

Doctrine

Every person accused of a crime is presumed to be in his right mind, because the law presumes all acts and omissions punishable by law to be voluntary. The defense of insanity is an affirmative defense, and the burden of proving it rests on the accused by sufficient and convincing evidence, direct or circumstantial, that satisfies the judicial mind that he was insane at the very time of the perpetration of the offense. Evidence of the condition of the accused's mind a reasonable period before and after the act is admissible, but it must show a deprivation of reason at the time of the act, not merely odd behavior, moodiness, or a personality disturbance. Where the proof does not overcome the presumption, the conclusion of fact is that the accused was in his right mind, and the conclusion of law is that he is criminally liable.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court in its entirety, convicting the accused of murder and sentencing him to reclusion perpetua, with costs against him.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the law presumes all acts and omissions punishable by law to be voluntary, so sanity is presumed and insanity must be proved by the accused. Examiners use this case to test the burden of proof for the insanity defense and the rule that evidence of mental condition before and after the crime must still show deprivation of reason at the moment of the act.