PEOPLE VS PASUDAG
GR No. 128822, May 4, 2001
FACTS: SPO2 Pepito Calip urinated at a bushy
bamboo fence behind the public school. About
five (5) meters away, he saw a garden of about 70
square meters. There were marijuana plants in
between corn plants and camote tops. He inquired
from a storekeeper nearby as to who owned the
house with the garden. The store owner told him
that Pasudag owned it. A team was dispatched and
the team arrived and went straight to the house of
accused Pasudag. The police looked for accused
Pasudag and asked him to bring the team to his
backyard garden which was about five (5) meters
away. Upon seeing the marijuana plants, the
policemen called for a photographer, who took
pictures of accused Pasudag standing beside one
of the marijuana plants. They uprooted seven (7)
marijuana plants. The team brought accused
Pasudag and the marijuana plants to the police
station. At the police station, accused Pasudag
admitted, in the presence of Chief of Police
Astrero, that he owned the marijuana plants.
SPO3 Fajarito prepared a confiscation report
which accused Pasudag signed.
ISSUE: WON the arrest and seizure valid?
HELD: As a general rule, the procurement of a
search warrant is required before a law enforcer
may validly search or seize the person, house,
papers or effects of any individual. In the case at
bar, the police authorities had ample opportunity
to secure from the court a search warrant. SPO2
Pepito Calip inquired as to who owned the house.
He was acquainted with marijuana plants and
immediately recognized that some plants in the
backyard of the house were marijuana plants.
Time was not of the essence to uproot and
confiscate the plants. They were three months old
and there was no sufficient reason to believe that
they would be uprooted on that same day. With
the illegal seizure of the marijuana plants subject
of this case, the seized plants are inadmissible in
evidence against accused-appellant.
The arrest of accused-appellant was
tainted with constitutional infirmity. The
testimony of SPO3 Jovencio Fajarito reveals that
appellant was not duly informed of his
constitutional rights. It has been held repeatedly
that custodial investigation commences when a
person is taken into custody and is singled out as
a suspect in the commission of a crime under
investigation and the police officers begin to ask
questions on the suspect's participation therein
and which tend to elicit an admission. Obviously,
accused-appellant was a suspect from the moment
the police team went to his house and ordered the
uprooting of the marijuana plants in his backyard
garden.
PEOPLE VS ZUELA
323 SCRA 589, (2000)
FACTS:The case is an appeal of accused Maximo
Velarde y de los Reyes, Nelson Garcia y
Temporas and Tito Zuela y Morandarte from the
decision of the RTC, Camarines Sur, Libmanan,
Br. 24, finding them guilty beyond reasonable
doubt of robbery with homicide.
ISSUE: WON the extra-judicial confessions were
executed in accordance with the provisions of the
1973 Constitution?
HELD: The right to counsel attaches the moment
an investigating officer starts to ask questions to
elicit information on the crime from the suspected
offender.. In other words, the moment there is a
move or even urge of said investigators to elicit
admissions or confessions or even plain
information which may appear innocent or
innocuous at the time, from said suspect, he
should then and there be assisted by counsel,
unless he waives the right, but the waiver shall be
made in writing and in the presence of counsel.
There was no evidence that Maximo
executed a waiver of his right to counsel. In light
of these facts, we are constrained to rule that
Maximo Velardes extra-judicial statement is
inadmissible in evidence. An uncounselled extra-
judicial confession without a valid waiver of the
right to counsel that is, in writing and in the
presence of counsel is inadmissible in evidence.
Contrary to the ruling of the trial court, the defect
in the confessions of Tito and Nelson was not
cured by their signing the extra-judicial
statements before Judge Bagalacsa.?Nevertheless,
the infirmity of accused-appellants sworn
statements did not leave a void in the
prosecutions case. Accused-appellant Maximo
repeated the contents of his sworn statement to
Romualda Algarin who, in turn, related these in
court. Such declaration to a private person is
admissible in evidence against accused-appellant
Maximo pursuant to Rule 130, Section 26 of the
Rules of Court stating that the act, declaration or
omission of a party as to a relevant fact may be
given in evidence against him. The trial court,
therefore, correctly gave evidentiary value to
Romualdas testimony.
And in the recent case of People vs.
Andan, the Court reiterated the doctrine
enunciated in the Maqueda case. In Andan, the
Court said that when the accused talked with the
mayor as confidant and not as a law enforcement
officer, his uncounselled confession did not
violate his constitutional rights. Constitutional
procedures on custodial investigation do not apply
to a spontaneous statement, not elicited through
questioning by the authorities, but given in an
ordinary manner whereby appellant orally
admitted having committed the crime.
Treachery was not alleged in the
information but the suddenness of the assault
upon Hegino and Maria from behind was proven
beyond reasonable doubt. As such, treachery may
be appreciated as a generic aggravating
circumstance. Treachery exists when an adult
person illegally attacks a child of tender years and
causes his death.
The crime committed is the special complex
crime of robbery with homicide defined and
penalized in Article 294 of the Revised Penal
Code. The trial court correctly considered the
crime as robbery with homicide and not robbery
with triple homicide as charged in the
information. The term homicide in Article
294(1) is used in its generic sense, embracing not
only the act which results in death but also all
other acts producing anything short of death.
Neither is the nature of the offense altered by the
number of killings in connection with the robbery.
The multiplicity of victims slain on the occasion
of the robbery is only appreciated as an
aggravating circumstance. This would preclude an
anomalous situation where, from the standpoint of
the gravity of the offense, robbery with one
killing would be treated in the same way that
robbery with multiple killings would be.
PEOPLE VS ABE VALDEZ
GR No. 129296, Sept. 25, 2000, 341 SCRA 25
FACTS: This is an automatic review of the
decision of the RTC of Bayombong Nueva
Vizcaya finding accused-appellant Abe Valdez
guilty for violation Section 9 of Dangerous Drugs
Act (RA 6245). He was accused of planting and
(maybe) manufacturing marijuana. During trial,
one of the witnesses, SPO3 Marcelo Tipay
testified that at around 10:15 a.m. of September
24, 1996, he received a tip from an unnamed
informer about the presence of a marijuana
plantation, allegedly owned by appellant at Sitio
Bulan, Ibung, Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya. The
prohibited plants were allegedly planted close to
appellant's hut. Police Inspector Alejandro R.
Parungao, Chief of Police of Villaverde, Nueva
Vizcaya then formed a reaction team from his
operatives to verify the report. The team was
composed of SPO3 Marcelo M. Tipay, SPO2
Noel V. Libunao, SPO2 Pedro S. Morales, SPO1
Romulo G. Tobias and PO2 Alfelmer I. Balut.
Inspector Parungao gave them specific
instructions to "uproot said marijuana plants and
arrest the cultivator of same. The following day,
said police team, accompanied by their informer,
went to the site where the marijuana plants were
allegedly being grown. The police found appellant
alone in his nipa hut. They, then, proceeded to
look around the area where appellant had his
kaingin and saw seven (7) five-foot high,
flowering marijuana plants in two rows,
approximately 25 meters from appellant's
hut.PO2 Balut asked appellant who owned the
prohibited plants and, according to Balut, the
latter admitted that they were his. The police
uprooted the seven marijuana plants for evidence.
The police took photos of appellant standing
beside the cannabis plants. Appellant was then
arrested.
Meanwhile, the accused-appellant
contended that at around 10:00am of September
25, 1996, he was weeding his vegetable farm
when he was called by a person whose identity he
does not know. He was asked to go with the latter
to "see something." He was brought to the place
where the marijuana plants were found,
approximately 100 meters away from his nipa hut.
Five armed policemen were present and they
made him stand in front of the hemp plants. He
was then asked if he knew anything about the
marijuana growing there. When he denied any
knowledge thereof, SPO2 Libunao poked a fist at
him and told him to admit ownership of the
plants. Appellant was so nervous and afraid that
he admitted owning the marijuana. The police
then took a photo of him standing in front of one
of the marijuana plants. He was then made to
uproot five of the cannabis plants, and bring them
to his hut, where another photo was taken of him
standing next to a bundle of uprooted marijuana
plants. Finding appellant's defense insipid, the
trial court held appellant liable as charged for
cultivation and ownership of marijuana plants.
Appellant contends that there was
unlawful search. First, the records show that the
law enforcers had more than ample time to secure
a search warrant. Second, that the marijuana
plants were found in an unfenced lot does not
remove appellant from the mantle of protection
against unreasonable searches and seizures. For
the appellee, the Office of the Solicitor General
argues that the records clearly show that there was
no search made by the police team, in the first
place. The OSG points out that the marijuana
plants in question were grown in an unfenced lot
and as each grew about five (5) feet tall, they
were visible from afar, and were, in fact,
immediately spotted by the police officers when
they reached the site. The seized marijuana plants
were, thus, in plain view of the police officers.
The instant case must, therefore, be treated as a
warrantless lawful search under the "plain view"
doctrine.
ISSUE: WON the warrantless search was lawful.
HELD: No. From the declarations of the police
officers themselves, it is clear that they had at
least one (1) day to obtain a warrant to search
appellant's farm. Their informant had revealed his
name to them. The place where the cannabis
plants were planted was pinpointed. From the
information in their possession, they could have
convinced a judge that there was probable cause
to justify the issuance of a warrant. But they did
not. Instead, they uprooted the plants and
apprehended the accused on the excuse that the
trip was a good six hours and inconvenient to
them. In the instant case, it was held that the
confiscated plants were evidently obtained during
an illegal search and seizure. As to the
admissibility of the marijuana plants as evidence
for the prosecution, the SC found that said plants
cannot, as products of an unlawful search and
seizure, be used as evidence against appellant.
They are fruits of the proverbial poisoned tree.
The Constitution lays down the general rule that a
search and seizure must be carried on the strength
of a judicial warrant. Otherwise, the search and
seizure is deemed "unreasonable." Evidence
procured on the occasion of an unreasonable
search and seizure is deemed tainted for being the
proverbial fruit of a poisonous tree and should be
excluded. Such evidence shall be inadmissible in
evidence for any purpose in any proceeding.
The voluntary confession of ownership of
marijuana was in violation of the custodial rights
because of the absence of competent and
independent counsel, and thus, inadmissible too.
In sum, both the object evidence and the
testimonial evidence as to the appellants
voluntary confession of ownership of the
prohibited plants relied upon to prove appellants
guilt failed to meet the test of constitutional
competence. Without these, the prosecutions
remaining evidence did not even approximate the
quantum of evidence necessary to warrant
appellants conviction. Hence, the presumption of
innocence on his favor stands.