THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. AMIN MADLI, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Charged with the crime of parricide, Moro Amin
Madli was tried and convicted by the Court of First Instance of
Zamboanga. He appealed to this court from the judgment sentencing him
to reclusion perpetua, and to pay an indemnity in the sum of P1,000 with the costs.

The accused, for sometime, had been living separately from his wife
Mora Jamura. Attempting to find a means to make his wife rejoin him, he
went to complain to the provincial fiscal of Zamboanga on February 13,
1935, requesting the latter’s mediation for a reconciliation with her.
Jamura, however, resolutely refused to return to live with him. At
about midnight of said day, while everybody in the house was asleep,
the accused went up said house where his wife was living with her
father and, approaching the bed where his wife was sleeping, dealt her
blows with the hatchet carried by him, thereby inflicting upon her
several wounds which caused her instant death.

The accused attempted to prove that he and his wife had agreed to
elope that night, so that at about 12 o’clock he went up the kitchen
the door of which, according to him, had been left open by the
deceased, and having met Jamura therein, she told him to wait for a
moment because she had to get her suitcase which was at her father’s
bedhead. Instead of getting the suitcase, however, Jamura invited him
to lie down on her bed or mattress. While both lay therein, wrapped in
a patadiong and talking in a low voice, Jamura’s father woke
up and, upon knowing that the accused was with her, he hurled a spear
at the accused, which grazed the latter’s breast, inflicting a
transversal wound upon him. The accused claims that his father-in-law,
armed with a hatchet, later went to where he and his wife lay and dealt
him several blows with said hatchet, but because he was shielded by the
body of Jamura whom he held fast, the hatchet blows landed on her,
killing her instantly. This court, as the court below, finds this
defense to be improbable, and considers it proven beyond a reasonable
doubt that the accused had committed the crime of parricide with which
he was charged.

The defendant, in his brief, assigns two errors as committed by the
lower court, to wit: (1) In holding that the crime of parricide had
been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and (2) in finding him guilty of
said crime.

There being none of the errors assigned, the only question to be
determined is the penalty which must be imposed upon the accused,
taking into consideration the aggravating circumstances of treachery,
premeditation, dwelling and nighttime in the commission of the crime,
and the mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction of the accused.

The penalty prescribed by article 246 of the Revised Penal Code for the crime of parricide is reclusion perpetua
to death, but, there being no unanimity among the members of this court
relative to the consideration of the circumstances and the imposition
of the death penalty, as required by article 47, subsection 2, of the
Revised Penal Code, and by the last paragraph of section 133 of the
Revised Administrative Code, as amended by section 2 of Commonwealth
Act No. 3; the judgment appealed from, sentencing the accused to the
penalty of reclusion perpetua and to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of P1,000, is hereby affirmed, with costs. So ordered.

Avancena, C. J., Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Imperial, Diaz, and Laurel, JJ., concur.