THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. ISABELO MONTEMAYOR, ET AL., DEFENDANTS. CARLOS CARAMONTE, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.

People versus Caramonte

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Isabelo Montemayor and others, with Carlos Caramonte as the defendant who was acquitted at trial. The action is an attempt by the State, through the Acting City Fiscal of Cadiz City, to appeal from a judgment of acquittal rendered by the trial judge. The case matters because it tests a question every criminal lawyer must answer cold: may the prosecution appeal a judgment of acquittal, or does the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy bar that appeal absolutely? The Supreme Court answers with a firm no, and the decision gathers the long line of cases that had already said so.

Procedural History

The accused, Carlos Caramonte, was tried before the Presiding Judge of the court in Cadiz, Negros Occidental. On the seventh of September, nineteen hundred sixty-eight, the trial judge rendered a decision acquitting the accused. The Acting City Fiscal of Cadiz City then interposed an appeal from that judgment of acquittal, and the record of the case, including the minutes of the proceedings and the lists of exhibits, was forwarded to the Supreme Court. The Acting City Fiscal also filed an urgent motion for leave to file a memorandum in support of the appeal, pleading what he called the enormity of the injustice allegedly perpetrated by the trial judge. The Supreme Court required the Solicitor General to comment on that motion. The Solicitor General filed his comment expressing the view that the appeal would constitute double jeopardy and should not be allowed. The matter then came before the Supreme Court for resolution.

Facts

The case began as a criminal prosecution in Cadiz, Negros Occidental, with Carlos Caramonte among the accused. The case was tried, and the trial judge rendered a judgment of acquittal on the seventh of September, nineteen hundred sixty-eight.

Dissatisfied, the Acting City Fiscal of Cadiz City appealed from the acquittal. He evidently believed the acquittal was a flagrant act of maladministration of justice. He asked leave to file a memorandum in support of the appeal, citing the enormity of the injustice he claimed the trial judge had committed.

The Supreme Court required the Solicitor General to comment. The Solicitor General took the position that the appeal would place the accused in double jeopardy and should not be allowed. That comment, the Court observed, was fully supported by the applicable decisions.

Issues

• Whether or not the State may appeal from a judgment of acquittal rendered by a trial court.
• Whether or not such an appeal by the prosecution would violate the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy.

Applicable Provisions

The decision rests on the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy, which the Court invokes as the governing provision and which it treats as an insurmountable barrier to the appeal. The Court states the rule in these words:

No error, however, flagrant, committed by the court against the state, can be reserved by it for decision by the supreme court when the defendant has once been placed in jeopardy and discharged, even though the discharge was the result of the error committed.

This quoted rule bears directly on the case because the Acting City Fiscal's whole plea rested on the alleged flagrancy of the trial judge's error, and the rule forecloses exactly that argument.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the appeal does not lie. The appeal by the State is doomed to fail and cannot be given due course. The Court acknowledged that a flagrant act of maladministration of justice may occur, since the fallibility of human judgment is a fact of life, but that acknowledgment does not open the door to a State appeal.

On the second issue, the Court held that the appeal would violate double jeopardy. The accepted doctrine on double jeopardy, compelling the Court to respect a judgment of acquittal by virtue of such a guarantee, constitutes an insurmountable barrier. The Court traced the doctrine through its own decisions. In the first case decided after the Constitution took effect, the Court rejected the contention that the American ruling in Kepner against the United States be overruled, and made clear that an appeal from a judgment of acquittal by the State would be obnoxious to the principle of double jeopardy. In its first decision after liberation, the Court again adhered to the doctrine, stressing that an appeal after a judgment of dismissal places the accused in a second jeopardy. In a later case that aroused public interest because of the notorious acts of the accused and a penalty considered rather light, the Court dismissed the appeal notwithstanding the force of the Solicitor General's argument. In a rebellion case where one accused pleaded guilty and the prosecution believed a more severe penalty should have been meted out, the Court, speaking through the present Chief Justice, answered in the negative the question whether such an appeal could prosper, and held that the reasons advanced were not sufficiently weighty to warrant a reversal of a view that had become part of the settled jurisprudence and of the constitutional law.

Doctrine

A judgment of acquellation cannot be appealed by the State. Once the defendant has been placed in jeopardy and discharged, the prosecution may not reserve for review by the Supreme Court any error committed by the trial court against the State, however flagrant that error may be. The constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy is an insurmountable barrier to such an appeal. The rule is settled jurisprudence and part of constitutional law, and the alleged enormity of the injustice does not create an exception.

Disposition

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the State, without pronouncement as to costs, and the acquittal of Carlos Caramonte stands.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that no error, however flagrant, committed by the court against the State can be reviewed on appeal once the defendant has been placed in jeopardy and discharged. Examiners use this case to test whether a candidate knows that a judgment of acquittal is final and unappealable by the prosecution on double jeopardy grounds.