MANOLO L. MADDELA, PETITIONER AND APPELLANT, VS. JUAN P. AQUINO, ETC., ET AL., RESPONDENTS AND APPELLEES.

Maddela versus Aquino

The Case

This is a petition for mandamus filed by Manolo L. Maddela, the former governor of Nueva Vizcaya, against the prosecuting officers of that province, to compel them to include three more persons as defendants in the murder information already filed against him. Maddela had been charged with causing the arrest and liquidation of two young men suspected of aiding the Huks. When the prosecution refused to add the chief of police who transmitted his order and two witnesses who heard it, Maddela went to court to force their inclusion. The case matters because it fixes the boundary between the prosecutor's duty to charge the guilty and the prosecutor's discretion to screen out those against whom the evidence is insufficient — a boundary that mandamus cannot cross.

Procedural History

The provincial fiscal of Nueva Vizcaya filed the murder information against Maddela and two policemen of Solano. A special prosecutor from the Department of Justice later intervened and conducted a reinvestigation, taking the testimony of several persons, among them Guillermo Domingo, Paulino Garingan, and Hilario S. Dawa, all listed as witnesses in the information. After the prosecution declined to include these three as defendants, Maddela filed a formal petition for a writ of mandamus before the Court of First Instance of Nueva Vizcaya. That court, after trial, sustained the prosecuting officers and dismissed the petition. Maddela appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the dismissal.

Facts

While Maddela was governor of Nueva Vizcaya, Juan Duran and Victoriano Jimenez, two young men suspected of having given aid to the Huks in one of their raids, were arrested and liquidated. The provincial fiscal charged Maddela and two policemen of Solano with murder for having caused what the information called the arrest and liquidation of the two men.

A special prosecutor from the Department of Justice reinvestigated and took the testimony of several witnesses, including Guillermo Domingo, the chief of police of Solano, and Paulino Garingan and Hilario S. Dawa. Their testimony confirmed that Maddela, as governor, had ordered the arrest and liquidation. Domingo's own testimony revealed that he had transmitted that order to his subordinates.

On that basis, Maddela's counsel asked that Domingo be prosecuted as well. When the request was denied, Maddela filed a petition for mandamus to compel the prosecution to include Domingo, and with him Garingan and Dawa, the latter two on the theory that they had concealed the fact that they heard Maddela give the order to kill, making them accessories after the fact. The prosecuting officers answered that the evidence against the three was insufficient: Domingo had merely transmitted the order under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear, the fear of losing his own life, and Garingan and Dawa could not be held liable for merely having been present at the conference where the order was given.

Issues

• Whether or not the prosecuting officers abused their discretion in refusing to include Guillermo Domingo as a defendant in the murder information.
• Whether or not the prosecuting officers abused their discretion in refusing to include Paulino Garingan and Hilario S. Dawa as accessories after the fact.
• Whether or not mandamus lies to compel prosecuting officers to charge particular persons in an information.

Applicable Provisions

No statutory provision is quoted verbatim in the decision. The Court instead applies the rule announced in its own prior jurisprudence, which it restates as follows:

The law makes it the duty of prosecuting officers to file the charges against whomsoever the evidence may show to be responsible for an offense.

This duty is the premise of Maddela's petition, and the Court construes it as a duty qualified by discretion rather than an absolute command.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that there was no abuse of discretion. Domingo admitted transmitting Maddela's order to liquidate the two men, but the admission was qualified: he explained that he transmitted it for fear of being himself liquidated if he did not, and that after the arrest the subsequent liquidation was left to the discretion of Isauro Reverente and Sergeant Ambros. The prosecuting officers believed that explanation, and so did the trial court. The fear was not groundless, because three or four days earlier two of Domingo's policemen had been put to death by Maddela's commandos for disobeying his order. In these circumstances, the prosecutors could not be charged with abuse of discretion.

On the second issue, the Court held that the evidence against Garingan and Dawa was even weaker. They admitted being present at the conference where Maddela gave the order to arrest and liquidate, but there was no showing that they did anything to conceal the crime resulting from the implementation of that order to the extent of making them criminally liable as accessories after the fact.

On the third issue, the Court held that mandamus does not lie. The duty to charge all who appear responsible carries with it the corollary that those against whom no sufficient evidence of guilt exists are not to be included, and determining whether sufficient evidence exists necessarily involves the exercise of discretion. The Court stated the rule in these terms:

But we also there said that this does not mean that prosecuting officers shall have no discretion in the matter, for where the law demands that all persons who appear responsible for an offense shall be charged in the information, it also implies that those against whom no sufficient evidence of guilt exists are not to be included in the charge; and, needless to say, the determination of whether or not there is, as against any person, sufficient evidence of guilt to warrant his prosecution necessarily involves the exercise of discretion.

The Court found that the prosecuting officers appeared to have done their duty as they saw it, and that it did not appear they had failed to perform a duty enforceable through mandamus.

Doctrine

Prosecuting officers have the duty to file charges against whomsoever the evidence may show to be responsible for an offense, but that duty does not strip them of discretion. The same law that commands the charging of all who appear responsible implies that persons against whom no sufficient evidence of guilt exists must not be charged. The determination of whether sufficient evidence of guilt exists against a particular person is itself an exercise of discretion. Mandamus will not lie to compel a prosecutor to include a person in an information absent a clear showing of abuse of discretion — and the prosecutor's evaluation of a witness's explanation, such as a claim of uncontrollable fear, is precisely the kind of judgment courts will respect.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of First Instance dismissing Maddela's petition for mandamus, with costs against the appellant. The prosecution won.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing: the duty to charge all who appear responsible implies the discretion not to charge those against whom no sufficient evidence of guilt exists, and that determination is discretionary. Examiners use this case to test the limits of mandamus against prosecutorial discretion — when a prosecutor may be compelled to include or exclude a person in an information, and when the court will defer to the prosecutor's judgment.