THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. MAXIMO LATIDO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

An information was filed in the Court of First Instance of Batangas, by the
provincial fiscal of that province, charging Maximo Latido with the crime of
robbery in a band, with serious physical injuries, committed in company with
others who had been prosecuted and sentenced in the principal case No. 1948 of
the same court. On December 6, 1917, a judgment of conviction was rendered in
this case against Maximo Latido, sentencing the said Latido to 6 years, 10
months, and 1 day of presidio mayor, to the accessory penalties, and to
pay the costs. From this judgment the defendant appealed.

It was proven at the trial that, at about 8 o’clock on the night of June 16,
1911, thirteen individuals, two of whom had each a revolver, and the rest bolos,
under the command of Maximo Mendoza as chief, went up successively to the houses
of Mariano Marcuap and his father Lazaro Marcuap, situated in the
barrio of Bugtongnapulo of the municipality of Lipa; that, after they
had tied the said Mariano and his brother-in-law, Pedro Magcauas, who was then
in the house, they began to search the house, and notwithstanding the fact that
Mariano’s wife had succeeded in throwing out of the window a sock which she took
out of the trunk and which contained P42 and a pair of earrings valued at P5,
one of the robbers noticed what the said woman had done, and, with the aid of
the lamp with which the other robbers were provided, who stayed below and. who
were opportunely informed of what had been done by her, the said robbers
succeeded in finding the sock with its contents. At this juncture, the robbers
went down from the house with the two persons whose hands were tied up, and, as
the chief of the band saw that there was somebody at the door of the kitchen of
a house nearby, that is, the house of Lazaro Marcuap, he fired three shots, one
of which wounded the said individual which proved to be Lazaro Marcuap, the
father of Mariano. Immediately thereafter, the chief of the band with two others
went up to the house of the wounded man, and, with the aid of the lamp which
they took from Mariano’s house, they entered Lazaro’s house, and while they were
searching it under threat of death to the inmates, Mariano succeeded in
loosening the rope with which he was tied and took hold of a knife which he was
carrying in his pocket, and with said knife he inflicted a serious wound upon
the male-factor Sergio de los Reyes, who fell dead in the house thus assaulted,
and he also inflicted slight wounds to another robber Vicente Enriquez, who was
excluded from the charge and used as witness for the government in the principal
case, together with Francisco Matundan.

The offenfled party, Lazaro Marcuap, received a wound with an entrance and
exit on the left side behind the level of the tenth rib, but no internal organ
was particularly injured, because the bullet which caused the wound simply
touched the body slightly. His wound was healed after a period of 15 days which
incapacitated him for work, and occasioned him an expenditure of P10 for
medicine and P18 for the doctor’s bill.

It is a fact established at the trial that the crime of robbery in a band
with serious physical injuries was committed on the night of June 16, 1911, in
the houses of the said two residents of Lipa, Batangas. In spite of the fact
that, in the complaint, the names of the presumed authors of the said crimes are
given, and in spite of the further fact that, according to two of the same, who
had been utilized as government witnesses, there were thirteen male-factors, one
of whom died in the house of Lazaro Marcuap, it is certain- that in the said
complaint no mention whatever of the name of Maximo Latido was made until the
present cause was brought by virtue of the separate complaint filed on October
10, 1917, when the accused Latido was apprehended by the governor of the
province, notwithstanding the fact that there appeared no ground warranting the
arrest of said Latido at the trial of the complex crime attributed to him, which
occurred in June, 1911, or more than six years before.

The two offended parties, Mariano Marcuap and Pedro Magcauas, did not
recognize Maximo Latido as one of the robbers who went up into the house where
the robbery was first committed. If it were true, as the Government witness
Francisco Matundan declared, that Maximo Latido was one of the robbers who
assaulted the house of Mariano Marcuap, and the one who, threatening Marcuap
with a revolver, took hold of him by the head, said Marcuap could have very well
recognized Latido, his aggressor, in view of the fact that there was light in
the house. Nevertheless, the offended party, Marcuap, made no mention whatsoever
of the accused in his testimony in the principal as well as in this present
case.

The testimony of the only two witnesses who tried to implicate Maximo Latido
in the commission of the crime, do not agree as to the details regarding the
participation which the accused Latido had in the robbery in question, for while
Francisco Matundan affirms that three of the men were armed with revolvers as
was also the accused Maximo Latido, the other witness, Vicente Enriquez, who had
known the defendant for a number of years, said that the defendant did not have
a revolver with him but that he only had a bolo. These two witnesses affirm that
the name of the individual who was with them when they committed the robbery,
was Maximo de Luta, although one of them affirms that he is the accused Maximo
Latido himself.

The defendant denied that he took part in the said robbery and that he had a
revolver, a weapon he never had in his possession; and alleged that since the
date of the commission of the crime, that is, June 16, 1911, he has been living
in the barrio of Luta, engaged in working in the land of one Eduardo
Mayo, near the railway, where all could see him; that he had known the witness
Vicente Enriquez for some time and still knows him; that said witness Enriquez
knew his surname; that he never had any nickname; and that he was arrested by
the governor of the province only towards the close of the year 1917. The
defendant’s wife testified to the same effect.

Against the assertion made by the accused and corroborated by his wife that,
since the date of the robbery in June, 1911, till his detention in October or
November, 1917, he was living in his house in the barrio of Luta and
did not at any time leave it, the record does not furnish any evidence or
circumstance whatsoever to the contrary. In other words, it has not been shown
that the accused Latido has absented himself immediately after the perpetration
of the robbery in question and has returned to his residence only a few months
or days before his detention. Moreover, it does not appear in the proceedings
had, that an order was issued for the .arrest of the defendant as one of the
robbers, who took part in the robbery of which he is now accused.

The mere declarations of two witnesses excluded from the charge,
notwithstanding the fact that they took part in the commission of the crime
referred to, which declarations are conflicting, if not contradictory, and are
not corroborated by other evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, and which, if
combined and taken together as a whole, can not satisfy the court as to the
guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, are not sufficient to justify
his conviction.

A defendant in a criminal action shall be presumed to be innocent until the
contrary is conclusively proven, and in case of a reasonable doubt and his guilt
is not satisfactorily shown he shall be entitled to an acquittal.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment appealed from is reversed, and Maximo
Latido should be, as he hereby is, acquitted, and forthwith set at liberty, with
the costs of both instances de officio. So ordered.

Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Fisher, and Avanceña, JJ.,
concur.