THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. LEON DIANA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

United States versus Diana

The Case

This is a criminal case from the early American period in the Philippines: the Government of the United States, as plaintiff, prosecuting Leon Diana for the killing of his own nephew, Cayetano Gomez, in a billiard room in Cebu. The trial court convicted Diana of homicide and sentenced him to a long term of reclusion temporal. The case matters to a Bar candidate for two reasons. First, it fixes the rule on aberratio ictus — the mistake in the blow — where the offender aims at one person but the blow lands on another, and the Court holds that the crime is committed just the same. Second, it illustrates how the mitigating circumstances of passion and obfuscation and of lack of education may be appreciated, and how the penalty is lowered a degree when two extenuating circumstances stand without any aggravating one to offset them.

Procedural History

On the sixth of October, 1914, the prosecuting attorney of Cebu filed a complaint in the Court of First Instance of Cebu charging Leon Diana with the crime of homicide upon the person of Cayetano Gomez. On the fourteenth of the same month, the trial court rendered judgment convicting the defendant and sentencing him to fourteen years, eight months, and one day of reclusion temporal, with the corresponding accessory penalties, to pay an indemnity of five hundred pesos to the family of the deceased, and the costs. From that judgment the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of conviction as to the penalty and rendered its own judgment, with one Justice dissenting.

Facts

About one o'clock in the afternoon of the thirty-first of August, 1914, Cayetano Gomez was playing billiards with Zenon Licaroz. Having lost and wishing to continue playing, Gomez asked Dionisio Legara for the loan of a small sum of money. Legara refused, and refused again even when Gomez offered his ring as security. Taking offence, Gomez gave Legara a light punch with the billiard cue he was holding. Legara picked up a stone from the floor with which to assault Gomez. Gomez caught Legara by the shoulders, and the two grappled and struggled until they fell against the partition of the room.

At this point Leon Diana, Gomez's uncle, rose from the bench where he was sitting, seized one of the cues near the billiard table, and roughly addressed his nephew, asking why he had picked a quarrel with Legara. As Gomez turned his face toward his uncle, Diana struck a blow with the handle of the cue, and the blow landed on the upper part of Gomez's forehead. The struggle ended, and Gomez bled through his mouth and nose. Without saying a word, Gomez left the place, and the people present believed he had started home. Diana struck only this one blow, said nothing to his nephew, and left the billiard room shortly after the assault.

Later, a man was found lying on the provincial highway near the barrio of Montañesa, in the municipality of Malabuyoc. The justice of the peace and the police went to the place and found him speechless and unconscious. He was taken to the municipal building, where he died a few hours afterwards. An examination of the body showed a pronounced inflammation indicating a bruise on the forehead, and a little higher up, toward the top of the head, a small depression in the skull large enough to admit a finger. A lot of blood flowed from the nose. The next morning the policeman took from the billiard room the cue that had been the instrument of the crime, and blood stains were found on its butt. The defendant admitted using the cue but claimed he struck at Dionisio Legara, and denied any trouble with the deceased or his family, a denial contradicted by the eye-witnesses Pedro Cardente and Juan Obeda.

Issues

• Whether or not the crime committed was homicide, as defined and punished by the Penal Code, and not murder or a crime with a severer penalty.
• Whether or not the defendant is criminally liable although his intention may have been to strike Dionisio Legara and the blow fell instead on Cayetano Gomez.
• Whether or not the defendant may be allowed the benefit of the third circumstance of article 9 of the Penal Code, that is, that the wrong done was not wholly the means employed to accomplish the wrongful act.
• Whether or not the mitigating circumstances of passion and obfuscation and of lack of education may be appreciated in the defendant's favor.

Applicable Provisions

Article 404 of the Penal Code, which defines and punishes homicide, provides:

Any person who, not falling within the provisions of article 402, shall kill another without the attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated in the next preceding article, shall be deemed guilty of homicide and be punished by reclusion temporal.

This is the provision under which the Court classified the killing, there being no qualifying circumstance to raise it to murder.

Article 9 of the Penal Code, on mitigating circumstances, provides:

The following are mitigating circumstances: Third. That the wrong done in the commission of the crime be not wholly the means employed to accomplish the wrongful act. Seventh. That the offender acted upon an impulse of passion and obfuscation.

The Court denied the third circumstance but appreciated the seventh, and this lowered the penalty.

Article 11 of the Penal Code, as amended by Act Number 2142, provides:

The following are also mitigating circumstances: That the offender is a person of scanty education.

The Court took this into account in view of the defendant's scanty education and personal qualities.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the crime committed was homicide under article 404 of the Penal Code. No qualifying circumstance concurred to classify the crime as murder or as one for which a severer penalty is provided. The victim received a heavy blow on the upper part of the forehead which crushed in his skull and caused him to bleed abundantly at the mouth and nose, and he died several hours afterwards.

On the second issue, the Court held that it makes no difference whether the defendant's intention was to strike Dionisio Legara or not, for the blow fell on the head of Cayetano Gomez. The Court said:

The same crime would have been committed if the injured man and the deceased had been Dionisio Legara, instead of the defendant's nephew, Cayetano Gomez; the crime of homicide would have been committed just the same and one man would have been deprived of his life by the criminal act of another.

On the third issue, the Court denied the defendant the benefit of the third circumstance of article 9. The defendant, in order to separate the combatants, seized a billiard cue by the smaller end and struck one of them squarely on the head. He must have known that the butt of the cue would fall with greater weight and force, and that a blow on the head, a very delicate part of the body, might produce fatal results, as happened in this case.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that the commission of the crime was attended by the circumstance of passion and obfuscation, on seeing his nephew struggling with Dionisio Legara, for he reproached Gomez for having engaged in a quarrel with the latter. In view of his scanty education and personal qualities, the Court also took account of the circumstance specified in article 11 of the Code, as amended by Act Number 2142. As there were two extenuating circumstances with no aggravating one to offset their effects, the defendant should be sentenced to the penalty next lower in degree than that provided by law for the crime.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, where the offender aims a blow at one person but the blow lands on another, the crime is committed just the same, and the offender is liable for the result actually produced; this is the rule on mistake in the blow. Second, no one is authorized, on the pretext of separating two combatants in a quarrel, to strike either of them a heavy blow on the head with a dangerous instrument. Third, the mitigating circumstance of passion and obfuscation may be appreciated where the offender acted on an impulse produced by seeing a relative engaged in a quarrel. Fourth, scanty education is a mitigating circumstance under article 11 of the Penal Code, as amended by Act Number 2142. Fifth, when there are two extenuating circumstances with no aggravating one to offset their effects, the penalty is lowered one degree, as the Court did here.

Disposition

The Court reversed the judgment appealed from and sentenced Leon Diana to eight years and one day of prision mayor, with the accessory penalties of article 61 of the Code, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of one thousand pesos, and to pay the costs of both instances.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that it makes no difference whether the defendant intended to strike one person or another, for the blow fell on the head of Cayetano Gomez, and the crime of homicide was committed just the same. Examiners like to use this case on the rule on mistake in the blow, and on the appreciation of passion and obfuscation and scanty education as mitigating circumstances that lower the penalty one degree.