G.R. Nos. 14284-85. February 24, 1960
WILLIAM POMEROY AND CELIA MARIANO POMEROY, PETITIONERS AND APPELLEES, VS. THE DIRECTOR OF PRISONS AND THE SUPERINTENDENT OF CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION FOR WOMEN, RESPONDENTS AND A…
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
On June 7, 1952, William Pomeroy and Celia Mariano were charged in
the Court of First Instance of Manila (Criminal Case No. 19166) with
the complex crime of rebellion with murder, arson and robbery committed
in pursuance of the rebellion. Arraigned on June 18, 1952, the accused
entered a plea of guilty, whereupon the court found them guilty as
charged and sentenced both to reclusion perpetua. On the same day, both prisoners entered prison and began serving their sentence.
On August 18, 195S, the spouses filed petitions for writs, of habeas corpus, invoking the decisions of this Court in People vs. Hernandez, 99 Phil., 515; 52 Off. Gaz., (12) 5506; People vs. Geronimo, 100 Phil., 90; 53 Off. Gaz., (1) 68; and People vs.
Togonon, 101 Phil., 804; 54 Off. Gaz., (36) 8237, wherein this Court
declared that acts of violence committed in pursuance of rebellion did
not give rise to a complex crime, but only to simple rebellion
punishable under Article 134 and 135 of the Revised Penal Code with prision mayor and
a fine of not more than 20,000 pesos. They averred that according to
the decisions cited, the Court of First Instance of Manila had no power
to sentence them to reclusion perpetua; that in view of their plea of guilty, they could, at most, be sentenced to prision mayor in its minimum degree; that in so far as it exceeded, said penalty, the sentence imposed upon them is void; that they had served the minimum of prision mayor, after the deductions for good conduct provided by law; and prayed for their release.
Notwithstanding the vigorous objection of the Solicitor General, in
representation of the Director of Prisons, the Court of First Instance
of Rizal, by decision of August 27, 1958, found that the petitioning
prisoners had served 6 years, 2 months and 9 days to date; that
crediting them with the corresponding good conduct time allowance and
one-half of the preventive imprisonment, starting from their arrest on
April 1, 1952 until the day the two began to serve sentence on June 17,
1952,
“the Court is of the opinion that petitioners have
already served more than the full period of imprisonment which could be
lawfully imposed upon them and therefore are entitled to be released.WHEREFORE,
the Court hereby orders the release of the petitioners unless there
exist any other legal and valid cause for their further detention.
Without costs.”
From that decision the State attorneys resorted to this Court assigning the following errors:
- The court a quo erred in not holding itself without jurisdiction to entertain the petition for habeas corpus.
- The court a quo erred in holding that habeas corpus is a proper remedy in this case.
- The court a quo erred in finding that the petitioners-appellees have already served their lawful sentence.
- The court a quo erred in granting the writ of habeas corpus and ordering the release of the appellees.
Upon appellant’s petition, we issued a preliminary injunction.
With reference to persons in custody pursuant to a final judgment, the rule is that the writ of habeas corpus
can issue only for want of jurisdiction of the sentencing court, and
can not function as a writ of error. Hence, the writ will not lie to
correct mere mistakes of fact or of law which do not nullify the
proceedings taken by a court in the exercise of its functions, if the
court has jurisdiction over the crime and over the person of the
defendant (Talabon vs. Prov. Warden, 78 Phil., 599; Perkins vs. Director of Prisons, 58 Phil., 271; Paguntalan vs. Director of Prisons, 57 Phil., 140; Trono Felipe vs. Director of Prisons, 24 Phil., 121; U.S. vs. Jayme, 23 Phil., 90; McMicking vs. Schields, 2S8 U. S. 99; 41 Phil., 971).
In the case at bar, the applicant prisoners do not question the
jurisdiction of the court to take cognizance of the various crimes of
rebellion, murder, arson, etc., alleged in the information to which
they pleaded guilty. Nor do they question that the Court of First
Instance could have properly sentenced them for the crime of rebellion
complexed with murder, arson, etc. if such crimes could properly be
deemed as constituting one single complex offense. Their precise
contention (upheld by the court below) is that since rebellion can not
form a complex with common crimes, because the latter are either
absorbed by the rebellion itself or are punishable as independent
offenses (as subsequently decided by this court), the penalty of reclusion perpetua meted out to them is excessive and void in so far as it goes beyond the prision mayor and fine not exceeding P20,000 prescribed by Article 135 of the Revised Penal Code.
It will be seen that the prisoners’ stand assumes that doctrines and
rulings of the Supreme Court operate retrospectively, and that they can
claim the benefit of our decisions in People vs. Hernandez, People vs. Geronimo, and People vs. Togonon (ante),
promulgated four or more years after the prisoner applicants had been
convicted by final judgment and started serving sentence. However, the
rule adopted by this Court (and by the Federal Supreme Court) is that
judicial doctrines have only prospective operation and do not apply to
cases previously decided (People vs. Pinuila, 103 Phil., 992; 55 Off. Gaz., [23] 4228):
“The decision of this Court on that appeal by the
government from the order of dismissal, holding that said appeal did
not place the appellants, including Absalon Bignay, in double jeopardy,
signed and concurred in by six Justices as against three dissenters
headed by the Chief Justice, promulgated way back in the year 1962, has
long become the law of the case. It may be erroneous, judged
by the law on double jeopardy as recently interpreted by this same
Tribunal. Even so, it may not be disturbed and modified. Our recent
interpretation of the law may be applied to new cases, but certainly
not to an old one finally and conclusively determined. As already
stated, the majority opinion in that appeal is now the law of the case.”
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Warring vs. Colpoys, 136 A. L. R. 1025, considered the same question and arrived at the same result. Said the Court:
“All of the loose ends presented in this discussion
on the effect of altering the law can be pretty well tied together,
when it is realized that law is not a pure science, that law loses its
vital meaning if it is not correlated to the organic society in which
it lives, that law is a present and prospective force, that law needs
some stability of administration, that the law is all the law there is,
that law is more for the parties than for the courts, that people will
rely upon and adjust their behavior in accordance with all the law be
it legislative or judicial or both.”These considerations
should guide the lawmakers and the law appliers in making their
determinations in respect of whether a change in the law is to be
effective only for the future or also for the past, and if the latter,
to what extent.[1] And these
considerations should be applicable to both sides of a potential
litigation, civil or criminal, so that we may have our rules of the
game as we go. The Supreme Court in the Nye case applied its new law to
the litigation then before it. Inasmuch as personal liberty was
involved and the courts usually apply law this much after the fact,
such a result was meritorious. But the Court did not indicate whether
its new law was to be applied to cases decided under the old law
previous to its decision. That question is now for us, another court.We
believe that appellant is not entitled to discharge upon the habeas
corpus writ. The District Court had tile power to sentence him in a
criminal contempt proceeding in 1939. The Nye case of 1941 should not
be applied so as to sweep away that power as of 1939. This collateral
attack, then, is unavailing. We reject the idea that if a court was
considered to have the power in 1939 to do a certain thing under
existing statutory construction, and in 1941 that construction is
changed so that it no longer has the power to do that thing, it should
be concluded that it never had the power in 1939. It has often been
said that the living should not be governed by the dead, for that would
be to close our eyes to the changing conditions which time imposes. It
seems even sounder to say that the living; should not be governed by
their posterity, for that, in turn, would be downright chaotic.”
It is thus apparent that it cannot be properly said that the
sentence meted out to the applicants Pomeroy was erroneous and beyond
the court’s jurisdiction. But, assuming that it was error for the Court
to consider that the murders and cither common crimes charged against
the prisoners could be “complexed” with the rebellion and warranted
imposition of a penalty beyond prision mayor, there remains the issue whether the mistake was or may be considered jurisdictional. We think not.
In providing for complex crimes, the Revised Penal Code did not set
up a category of crimes independent of the component ones, but only for
an aggravated form thereof. This rule was impelled by the desire to
impose only one penalty for all offenses resulting from one and the
same criminal impulse. Whether or not the offenses are so related as to
constitute one single punishable violation evidently depends upon the
Court’s appreciation of the facts of the case and the applicable law,
and not upon its jurisdiction, since it is not contested that the
component crimes were within the Court’s power to try and adjudicate.
Granting that the sentencing court’s estimate of the facts and its
conclusion as to the governing law were erroneous, the mistake did not
render it powerless to act upon the premises nor deprive it of
authority to impose the penalty that in its view of the case was
appropriate. The view it had taken was not such capricious and
whimsical exercise of judgment or grave abuse of discretion as would
amount to lack or excess of jurisdiction, since at that time the
Supreme Court had affirmed convictions for the complex crime of treason
with murder and other offenses.[2]
As a matter of fact, the existence of the “complexed” rebellion is
still upheld to the day by a sizable number of lawyers, prosecutors,
judges and even justices of this Court. Hence the error committed was
correctible only by seasonable appeal, not by attack on the
jurisdiction of the sentencing Court.
While this court has also ruled that an excessive sentence or penalty imposed by final judgment may be corrected by habeas corpus,
the cases where such ruling was applied involved penalties that could
not be imposed under any circumstances for the crime for which the
prisoner was convicted (subsidiary imprisonment for violation of
special acts, in Cruz vs. Director of Prisons, 17 Phil., 269;
imprisonment for contempt by refusal to execute a conveyance, instead
of having the conveyance executed as provided by sec. 10 of Rule 39, in
Caluag vs. Potenciano Pecson, 82 Phil., 8). In the present
case, there is no question that the sentence meted out was the one
provided by law for the complex crime of which herein applicants were
indicted and convicted.
The situation of petitioners Pomeroy is not unique in our judicial
annals. A previously adjudicated case, similar in all essential
respects, is Paguntalan vs. Director of Prisons, 57 Phil.,
140. There a prisoner, convicted of robbery, was sentenced to ten
years’ imprisonment, plus an additional five years for habitual
delinquency in view of his four previous convictions for analogous
offenses. He contested the additional penalty for habitual delinquency,
on the strength of a subsequent doctrine of this Court that all Crimea
committed prior to the first conviction should be counted as only one
for the purpose of imposing the additional penalty for habitual
delinquency; and applied for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking
his release after serving the principal term of imprisonment. This
Court denied the writ, saying (cas. cit., pp. 143-144):
“In the present case the petitioner does not invoke
the benefit of article 22 of the Revised Penal Code, giving retroactive
effect to penal provisions so far as they are favorable to the accused,
provided he is not a habitual criminal, but seeks the review of a
sentence which has proved erroneous in view of a subsequent doctrine
laid down by this court the error consisting in that, instead of
counting the various convictions as one only, due to the proximity and
almost simultaneity of the commission of the several crimes of which
the petitioner was convicted, the same were considered as separate
convictions for the purposes of the law establishing habitual
delinquency. This error could have been corrected by appeal, for it was
rather an error of judgment and not an undue exercise of judicial
powers which vitiates and nullifies the proceeding. This court has
repeatedly held that mere errors of fact or law which do not nullify
the proceedings taken by a court in the exercise of its functions,
having jurisdiction over the crime and over defendant, cannot be
corrected through the special remedy of habeas corpus (Trono Felipe vs. Director of Prisons, 24 Phil., 121; U.S. vs. Jayme, 24 Phil., 90; McMicking vs. Schields, 238 U.S., 99; 41 Phil., 971.)”
The case of Trono Felipe vs. Director of Prisons (24 Phil., 121) may also be cited. There the prisoner applied for habeas corpus
and release, on the ground that he was erroneously convicted and
sentenced for abduction with consent of a virgin above 18 years of age,
when according to a subsequent ruling of the Supreme Court the woman
abducted should be less than 18 years old. This Court again denied the
release (cas. cit., pp. 123-124), ruling that the error was not
jurisdictional:
“We agree with counsel for the petitioners that
under the doctrine laid down in the Fideldia case, judgment of
conviction was erroneously entered by the trial court and erroneously
affirmed by is, if the allegations of the petitioners are true, and if
it is a fact that the record in the case in which these petitioners
were convicted and sentenced does not disclose that the woman whom they
were charged with having abducted was less than 18 years of age at the
time when the alleged crime was committed. But such an error, if in fact it was committed, in
no wise affected the jurisdiction of the court below to render judgment
of conviction and to sentence the petitioners for the crime of which
they were convicted. Throughout the entire course of those
proceedings in the trial court, that court had jurisdiction of both of
the persons of the accused and of the crime with which they were
charged, and it did not and could not lose that jurisdiction as a consequence of mistake or error committed by the trial judge in his finding of fad as to the age of the woman, or in his conclusions of law
as to the bearing of the woman’s age upon the question of the guilt or
innocence of the accused of the crime with which they were charged.”
(italics supplied)
In consonance with the foregoing precedents, we find that the Court
of First Instance of Rizal erred in ordering the release of the
prisoners William Pomeroy and Celia Mariano. While the penalty of reclusion perpetua
imposed upon them by final judgment is considerably longer than that
imposed by us in subsequent similar cases, the remedy lies in the hands
of the Chief Executive and not in the Courts.
The decision appealed from is reversed and set aside, and the petition for habeas corpus is ordered dismissed, with costs de oficio. So ordered.
Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Labrador, Concepcion, and Endencia, JJ., concur.
Barrera, J., took no part.
[1] Snyder, Retrospect Operation
of Overruling Decisions (1940) 35 Ill. L. Rev. 121; Freeman, The
Protection Afforded Against the Retroactive Operation of an Overruling
Decision (1918) 18 Col. L. Rev. 230; (1933.) 42 Yale L. J. 779; (1038)
25 Va. L. Rev. 210. Compare 88 ALB 1514 et seq; but see, United States vs. Hill, 3 Cir., 70 F(2d) 100.6, certiorari denied 292 US 634, 54 S Ct 719, 78 L ed 1487; Compare Hoiser vs. Aderhold, 5 Cir, 71 F(2d) 422 and Eives vs. O’Hearne, 64 App (DC) 48, 73 F(2d) 984; Ellerbee vs. Aderhold, DCND (Ga) 5 F Supp 1022.
[2] See People vs. Labra, 81 Phil., S77; People vs. Albano, 82 Phil., 767; People vs. Vilo, 82 Phil., 524; People vs. Jardinico, 85 Phil., 410.
DISSENTING OPINION
PARAS, C. J.:
This petition for habeas corpus was presented in the Court of First
Instance of Rizal on the strength of the petitioners’ reliance that the
decisions of the Supreme Court will be enforced.
The petitioners in the court below, who are now appellees, were sentenced to a penalty of reclusion perpetua
after entering a plea of guilty to an information charging them with
the complex crime of rebellion with murders, robberies and kidnappings.
We have held in People vs. Hernandez et al., 99 Phil., 515;
52 Off. Gaz., (12) 5506, that rebellion cannot be complexed with other
common crimes. We have adhered to and reiterated this ruling in People
us. Geronimo, 100 Phil., 90; 53 Off. Gaz., (1) 68; People vs. Togonon, 101 Phil., 804; 54 Off. Gaz., (36) 8237, People vs. Romagosa, 103 Phil., 20; 52 Off. Gaz., [14] 2946 and People vs. Santos, 104 Phil., 551; 56 Off. Gaz., [19] 3546. And the Revised Penal Code penalizes rebellion with prision mayor (Art. 135).
Following the doctrine laid down in the Hernandez case and
consistently repeated in our decisions, the maximum penalty to which
the appellees could have been sentenced, upon their plea of guilty, was
the minimum period of prision mayor which ranges from 6 years and 1 day to 8 years.
In Cruz vs. The Director of Prisons, 17 Phil., 269-73, this
Court has held that when a sentence imposed punishment in excess of the
power of the court, the sentence is void as to such excess and a
prisoner confined thereunder is entitled to be released on a writ of
habeas corpus if he has served so much of the sentence that could have
been lawfully imposed.
Again, in Caluag vs. Pecson (82 Phil., 8; 46 Off. Gaz., (2) 514, 516) this Court said:
“A sentence which imposes upon the defendant in a
criminal prosecution a penalty different from or in excess of the
maximum which the court is authorized by law to impose for the offense
of which the defendant was convicted, is void for want or excess of
jurisdiction, as to the excess in the latter case. And a judgment of
imprisonment which the court has no constitutional or statutory power
to impose, as in the present case, may also be collaterally attacked
for want or rather in excess of jurisdiction.”
Considering that at this time, by crediting their good conduct time
allowance and one-half of the period of their preventive imprisonment,
the appellees have served the maximum period of imprisonment that could
have been lawfully imposed upon them, they are entitled to the writ
prayed for.
Some members of the Court would prefer to adhere to their dissenting
opinion in the rebellion cases above cited to the effect that there
exists in our legal system the complex crime of rebellion,
notwithstanding the settled doctrine of this Court on the matter which
has precipitated a move in the Congress of the Philippines after the
promulgation of the Hernandez and Geronimo cases to amend the penal
code so as to make the crime of rebellion a capital offense. Other
members of the Court believe that the remedy of appellees, if any,
would be an application for pardon, thus making the right to liberty of
an accused under similar circumstances dependent upon the discretion of
the Chief Executive and depriving him of his remedy in courts of
justice. From the different opinions of the members of the Court, I
regret to dissent and express my vote to give effect to the doctrines
enunciated in our decisions which are relied upon by the appellees.
It is unfortunate that the majority cites as authority the case of People vs.
Pinuila, et al., 103 Phil., 992; 55 Off. Gaz., [23] 4228, promulgated
on May 30, 1958. I would like to point out that when this Court
interpreted Article 135 of the Revised Penal Code, we simply meant that
our interpretation was the law since the Code’s enactment. Rooted on
this notion, I now quote the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Felix in
the Pinuila case, as follows:
“I concur in the dissenting opinion of the Chief
Justice and make mine his reasons in support of his contention. I
wish, however, to add another reason which, I know, may be more
realistic than juridical.“There is no dispute among the
members of the Court that the decision We rendered in this case when it
was first brought up to Us, was erroneous because by that time, the
defendant had already been placed in double jeopardy. Nonetheless, this
Tribunal ruled that the lower court had jurisdiction over the case and
remanded the same to the lower Court for further proceedings. Needless
to say that when this case was elevated to us for the second time and
despite our previous ruling aforementioned, the defendant had not
ceased to be in double jeopardy, and it is my considered opinion that
We cannot sanction or approve our said ruling under the theory that it
was then the law of the case. Once Aristotle said that he was
“amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas”, and in paraphrasing1 this
statement that history passed, on to us and sanctioned with its
approval, I may say that although I am prone to follow the principle of
stare decisis and maintain the law of the case, as already
stated, yet I am always more determined to uphold the truth and
recognize an error that this Court may have previously committed.”
Bautista Angelo, J., concurs.