PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, APPELLEE, VS. SUEENE DISCALSOTA Y JUGAR, APPELLANT.

People versus Discalsota

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Sueene Discalsota, a criminal case for the killing of a sixteen-year-old boy, Herbert Suarnaba, in Bacolod City. The trial court convicted Discalsota of murder and sentenced him to death. The Supreme Court, on automatic review, kept the conviction for the taking of life but struck down the qualifying circumstances that had raised the crime to murder. The case matters because it is a clean teaching vehicle on two things every examinee must master: the strict proof required for evident premeditation and treachery, and the rule that without a proven qualifying circumstance, a killing is only homicide.

Procedural History

An Information was filed against Discalsota in the Regional Trial Court of Bacolod City, Branch 53, charging murder through treachery and evident premeditation. When arraigned, with the assistance of counsel, he pleaded not guilty. After trial, the Regional Trial Court found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of murder, appreciated evident premeditation and treachery, and imposed the death penalty, together with awards of civil indemnity, moral damages, and actual expenses. Because the penalty imposed was death, the case went to the Supreme Court on automatic review. On appeal, Discalsota assigned two errors: that the trial court erred in finding him guilty of murder despite the failure to prove evident premeditation and treachery, and that it erred in imposing the death penalty.

Facts

At about one o'clock in the afternoon of January 24, 1996, Herbert Suarnaba, sixteen years old, together with three neighborhood friends, went to a shopping mall and then to the house of a friend, Novieboy del Rosario, in Libertad Baybay, Bacolod City. While they were listening to music inside the house, a group of about nine men outside began shouting at them to get out or be killed. The teenagers did not know the men and had no grudge with them. The mother of their host advised them to stay inside and called for the police, but no police came. She then brought four barangay tanods, who assured the boys of safety and escorted them out toward the main road at dusk.

At the main road the boys boarded a pedicab. A man came running toward them from the footwalk, and the boys jumped out and ran. The man rushed at the victim, who was helping their host's mother to her feet, and the victim ran around the pedicab to escape. The man with the knife caught up with the fleeing victim and thrust the knife into his back. The victim fell, crawled, and managed to enter a house pleading for help, but he died shortly afterward at the hospital. The autopsy showed a single thrust entering at the back and cutting through the kidney, pancreas, and stomach, causing massive bleeding. Two of the victim's companions identified Discalsota as the attacker, and another witness saw him running away with a bloodied knife, shouting that he had gotten his man.

Discalsota denied the killing. He claimed he was tending his family's store the whole afternoon of January 24, 1996, and never left it, a claim corroborated by his sister. He said he learned of the stabbing only the next day and was arrested on the charge only in April 1997. The trial court rejected his alibi in the face of his positive identification by the prosecution witnesses.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court erred in appreciating evident premeditation as a qualifying circumstance.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in appreciating treachery.
• Whether or not the death penalty was properly imposed, and, relatedly, whether or not minority may be appreciated as a privileged mitigating circumstance.

Applicable Provisions

Article 14 of the Revised Penal Code, paragraph 16, defines treachery as follows:

There is treachery when the offender commits any of the crimes against persons, employing means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend directly and specially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising from the defense which the offended party might make.

This is the provision under which the trial court raised the killing to murder, and its exact language, requiring that the attack insure execution without risk to the offender, is what defeats the finding of treachery here.

Article 64 of the Revised Penal Code, paragraph 1, governs the application of penalties composed of several periods:

When there are neither aggravating nor mitigating circumstances, they shall impose the penalty prescribed by law in its medium period.

This provision fixes the penalty once the Court finds no aggravating or mitigating circumstance attending the homicide.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that evident premeditation was not proven. Qualifying circumstances cannot be presumed; they must be established by clear and convincing evidence as conclusively as the killing itself. The Court laid down the elements: the time when the accused determined to commit the crime, an act manifestly indicating that he clung to his determination, and sufficient lapse of time between the determination and the execution to allow him to reflect on the consequences of his act. The first two elements were present, since Discalsota shouted at the boys to come out or be killed and then waited outside and followed them. But the third element failed. Less than one hour passed from his shouts to the stabbing, and that span could not have afforded him full opportunity for meditation and reflection. The essence of premeditation is that execution be preceded by cool thought and reflection during a space of time sufficient to arrive at a calm judgment.

On the second issue, the Court held that treachery did not attend the killing. For treachery to exist, two elements must concur: the employment of means of execution that gives the person attacked no opportunity to defend himself or to retaliate, and the deliberate or conscious adoption of that means. Treachery cannot be presumed. Here the victim had been forewarned of the aggression and had ample opportunity to escape, and he in fact ran. The attack was made openly, the appellant was visible and out in the open, and the mode of attack carried risk to himself from any defense the group might make. The presence of that risk and the opportunity to escape negated treachery.

On the third issue, the Court refused to appreciate minority. It was never raised during trial, and on direct examination the appellant himself stated for the record that he was a twenty-year-old married man. Absent any qualifying circumstance, the appellant could be convicted of homicide only. With no aggravating or mitigating circumstance, the penalty of reclusion temporal was to be imposed in its medium period, within the range of the Indeterminate Sentence Law. On damages, the Court affirmed the civil indemnity and moral damages, but reduced actual damages to the amount duly supported by a statement of account and receipts, since actual damages must be proven with a reasonable degree of certainty upon competent proof.

Doctrine

First, a killing without any proven qualifying circumstance is homicide, punishable by reclusion temporal, not murder, and not by death. Second, qualifying circumstances cannot be presumed; they must be proved as conclusively as the killing itself. Third, evident premeditation requires a sufficient lapse of time between the determination to kill and its execution, enough for cool thought and reflection; a span of less than an hour does not suffice. Fourth, treachery under Article 14, paragraph 16, requires that the means of execution give the victim no opportunity to defend himself or retaliate and that the means be deliberately adopted; an open attack on a forewarned victim who could and did run negates it. Fifth, where there are neither aggravating nor mitigating circumstances, Article 64, paragraph 1, requires the penalty in its medium period, applied within the Indeterminate Sentence Law.

Disposition

The appeal was partly granted: Discalsota was convicted of homicide, not murder, and sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of ten years of prision mayor medium as minimum to seventeen years and four months of reclusion temporal medium as maximum, with civil indemnity and moral damages affirmed and actual damages reduced, and no pronouncement as to costs.

Remember This

Memorize the line: without a proven qualifying circumstance, a killing is homicide, and where the attack was open and the victim had ample opportunity to escape, treachery cannot be appreciated. Examiners use this case to test the elements and proof of evident premeditation and treachery, and the rule that qualifying circumstances must be proved as conclusively as the killing itself.