THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. EULOGIO SANCHEZ, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Eulogio Sanchez was accused of the crime of illegal detention, provided for
and punished in article 200 of the Penal Code, for having detained one Benigno
Aranzanso by keeping him in the municipal jail of the pueblo of Caloocan,
Province of Rizal, for a period of less than three days.

The Court of First Instance of said province sentenced the defendant as
guilty of said crime to a fine of 1,000 pesetas and to the
corresponding subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, such imprisonment
not to exceed six months. From this judgment the defendant appealed.

It appears from the evidence that the defendant, being a municipal policeman
of the town of Caloocan, did, at about 9 o’clock in the morning of August 13,
1912, arrest Benigno Aranzanso in the cockpit of Maypajo of that town and take
him to the town hall, where he was detained until just before nightfall of the
same day, when he was set at liberty by order of the president. But it also
appears from the same evidence: (1) That both the municipal president and the
sergeant of police, who was acting as chief of police of the town, had
information that two nights previous a robbery had occurred in a boat on the
Maypajo River in that jurisdiction, for the boatman had presented himself to the
said sergeant and indicated as one of the assailants of the boat an individual
who was the son of one Eto and who had been in a billiard room the same night;
(2) that on the said night of the 12th of August the Constabulary had been in
Caloocan to investigate, in company with the policemen of the pueblo, a robbery
that had occurred in a billiard room, and the said sergeant had acquired the
information that Benigno Aranzanso had been in that billiard room that night and
that about five minutes before he had left on the run; (3) that in view of this
the sergeant of police directed not only the defendant Eulogio Sanchez but also
all the patrolmen under his orders to look for the said Benigno Aranzanso in
order that he might be identified by the boatmen; and (4) that by virtue of said
order and because, the description they had given him of the person who had been
in the billiard room fitted Aranzanso, the defendant Eulogio Sanchez proceeded
to arrest him in the cockpit on the next morning, the 13th, and took him to the
town hall, as has already been stated, where he remained in confinement until
before nightfall of the same day. He was not identified because when the
sergeant of police arrived at the station he had already been set at liberty. No
warrant was previously issued for his detention because the fact had not been
reported to the justice of the peace and the 13th of August was a legal
holiday.

The defendant, therefore, acted in compliance with orders of his chief, the
sergeant of police, in arresting Benigno Aranzanso and his detention was
justified for the purpose of identifying his person, since, according to the
sergeant himself, reasonable grounds existed for believing in the existence of a
crime and suspicion pointed to that individual.

It was not necessary that the fact of the robbery committed in the boat
should have been established in order to regard such detention as legal:

“The legality of the detention does not depend upon the fact of the crime,
but * * * upon the nature of the deed, wherefrom such characterization may
reasonably be inferred by the officer or functionary to whom the law at that
moment leaves the decision for the urgent purpose of suspending the liberty of
the citizen.” (Decision of the supreme court of Spain, January 27,
1885.)

One of the duties of the police is to arrest lawbreakers in order to place
them at the disposal of the judicial or executive authorities upon whom devolves
the duty to investigate the act constituting the violation or to prosecute and
secure the punishment thereof. One of the means conducing to these ends being
the identification of the person of the alleged criminal or lawbreaker, the duty
that directly devolves upon the police to make the arrests or detentions for the
purposes of such investigation cannot be questioned.

The same supreme court has so declared in a decision of April 21,1884, in a
case wherein the person who had threatened another was unknown and suspicion
pointed to a man whom an officer of the law proceeded to arrest. The court said:

“The mere fact that an officer of the law compelled a person to appear before
the chief of the department to establish or prove his identity does not justify
the classification of illegal detention. It was merely in the nature of an
administrative measure, justified by the suspicion that he may have made certain
threats against another person.”

It is, therefore, beyond dispute that the defendant Eulogio Sanchez did not
commit the crime charged against him in the complaint, and we therefore reverse
the judgment appealed from and freely acquit him; with the costs of both
instances de officio.

Arellano, C. J., Carson, Moreland, and Trent, JJ.,
concur.