PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. MARLON MALACAMAN, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Malacaman

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Marlon Malacaman, a criminal appeal from a conviction for robbery with homicide under Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code. The Republic charged Malacaman, together with two unnamed companions, with taking more than two million pesos in police funds by force and violence, and with killing Police Senior Inspector Ludivina Ginauli and wounding Police Officer 3 Michael Barnuevo in the course of that robbery. The case matters because the Supreme Court, on automatic review of the conviction, acquitted the accused on reasonable doubt — not because the robbery did not happen, but because the prosecution failed to establish, with the reliability the Constitution demands, that Malacaman was the man who did it. It is, in short, a case about the frailty of eyewitness identification and the totality of circumstances test.

Procedural History

Malacaman was arraigned before Branch 92 of the Regional Trial Court of Calamba City, Laguna, and pleaded not guilty. After trial, the Regional Trial Court found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of robbery with homicide and sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, with awards of death indemnity, moral damages, exemplary damages, actual damages, and interest. Malacaman appealed to the Court of Appeals. In its decision of September 14, 2020, the Court of Appeals denied the appeal for lack of merit and affirmed the conviction, modifying only the amounts of damages. The case then reached the Supreme Court by appeal, as is automatic in criminal cases where the penalty imposed is reclusion perpetua.

Facts

On April 22, 2009, Police Officer 3 Michael Barnuevo drove Police Senior Inspector Ludivina Ginauli, the disbursing officer of the Philippine National Police Regional Office for MIMAROPA, to a bank in Calamba City to encash checks and withdraw clothing allowances for training recruits. She came out with cash in a yellow and red striped plastic bag and sat in the passenger seat with the bag on her lap. By around half past three in the afternoon, the two were on the highway. Ginauli received a text message, and because she had no reading glasses, Barnuevo read it for her — a police officer was asking whether she had withdrawn the money and was on her way back.

As Barnuevo handed the phone back, gunshots rang out. He was hit in the left arm, then three more times, including once in the head. He saw two men, one on each side of the car, firing small firearms. He pretended to be dead. The gunmen seized the plastic bag and fled toward a motorcycle ridden by a third man; the motorcycle fell, the bag burst, and the money scattered and was picked up by people in the street. Barnuevo survived after ten days in hospital; Ginauli died of multiple gunshot wounds.

While confined, Barnuevo was shown photographs from the police rogues' gallery and picked out Malacaman. The other eyewitness, Christopher Secillano, likewise identified Malacaman from photographs at the precinct. Both identified him in open court. Malacaman's defense was denial and alibi: he said he was home with his family the whole day and was arrested months later, in August 2009.

Issues

• Whether or not the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that Malacaman was the perpetrator of the robbery with homicide.
• Whether or not the out-of-court identification of Malacaman, made through photographs from the police rogues' gallery, was reliable under the totality of circumstances test.

Applicable Provisions

Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, defines the crime charged:

Any person guilty of robbery with the use of violence against or intimidation of any person shall suffer: 1. The penalty of reclusion perpetua to death, when by reason or on occasion of the robbery, the crime of homicide shall have been committed.

This is the offense of conviction, and the element of the accused's identity as perpetrator must be proved beyond reasonable doubt like every other element.

The 1987 Constitution supplies the standard of proof:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved.

That presumption is why the Court measures the identification evidence strictly before affirming a conviction.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court acquits. The identity of the accused is a fact that must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, and here the identification rested on eyewitness testimony, which the Court described as a product of flawed human memory. The Court quoted its ruling in People versus Ansano that the greatest care must be taken in considering the identification of the accused, especially where the judgment depends on the reliability of that identification.

On the second issue, the Court applied the six criteria of the totality of circumstances test: the witness's opportunity to view the criminal at the time of the crime; the witness's degree of attention at that time; the accuracy of any prior description; the level of certainty at the identification; the length of time between the crime and the identification; and the suggestiveness of the identification procedure. On the first two criteria, Barnuevo was distracted, handing back a phone, when the ambush began, and was shot four times including in the head; these circumstances failed to show an opportunity to recognize the assailants. On the third, the record lacked any prior description by either witness, so the Court could not ascertain how they recognized Malacaman from the gallery. On the fourth and fifth, the witnesses showed reasonable certainty at trial and no substantial time had elapsed. But on the sixth, there was a dearth of evidence on how Malacaman's photograph entered the rogues' gallery, the police officer who presented it never testified, and Secillano was told by a police officer that the person in the photograph was the suspect in the crime. That made the out-of-court examination unduly suggestive.

Taking these circumstances together, the Court found reasonable doubt, quoting its ruling in Balina versus People:

Reasonable doubt is defined as that doubt engendered by an investigation of the whole proof and an inability, after such investigation, to let the mind rest easy upon the certainty of guilt.

Doctrine

First, the identity of the accused as perpetrator is an element that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt; where it rests on eyewitness identification, the Court applies the totality of circumstances test with its six criteria, and a suggestive out-of-court identification contaminates the in-court identification. Second, a photographic identification is set aside where the procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification — as where police tell the witness that the person in the photograph is their suspect. Third, the presumption of innocence under the Bill of Rights requires acquittal where the whole proof leaves the mind unable to rest easy upon the certainty of guilt.

Disposition

The appeal was granted; the Court of Appeals decision was reversed and set aside; Malacaman was acquitted of robbery with homicide and ordered immediately released unless lawfully held for another cause.

Remember This

Memorize the six criteria of the totality of circumstances test and the rule that a suggestive out-of-court identification destroys the reliability of the in-court identification. Examiners use this case in criminal law and evidence to test eyewitness identification, the presumption of innocence, and the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.