43. THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. CRISPO LARA E ILANO, defendant-appellant. G.R. No.

L-31320; 54 Phil 96; December 3, 1929 EN BANC Ponente: STREET, J. FACTS: The deceased, Juan Advincula was a resident of Salitran, Dasmarias, Province of Cavite. One night, the deceased was aroused by the barking of his dog; and, upon looking into the cause of the noise, he found the accused, Crispo Lara e Ilano, in his yard. Advincula thereupon asked the accused what he was doing, and the latter replied that he was not after anything. Advincula nevertheless scolded him, supposing that he had designs upon the chickens in the stable. So strong was this impression in the mind of Advincula that he reported the incident the same night to the municipal authorities. In the late afternoon of July 22, 1927, the date of the homicide, Advincula was returning to his home, after having taken his carabaos to the corral of one Valentin Janoba. On the way he met the accused, and as to what occurred in this encounter, the Court only had the statement of Advincula, as delivered by him a short while thereafter in the house of his neighbor, Felix Ramirez. According to this statement Ilana asked Advincula, "Are you angry at me?" Whereupon Advincula replied, "How should I not be angry with you, since if my dog had not barked you would have taken my chickens?" To this the accused replied, saying You are a liar," at the same time firing an automatic revolver at Advincula, wounding him in the left shoulder. Upon receiving this wound, Advincula fled. He went to the house of Felix Ramirez. Advincula found the family of Ramirez sitting at the table eating their evening meal; and he told them that he had been shot by Ilana under the circumstances above stated, at the same time exhibiting the bloody stain on his left side. Ramirez at once called, or sent for, the barrio lieutenant, one Ciriaco Reyes; and upon the arrival of the latter, Advincula repeated his account of the occurrence, adding that he was weak from the pain resulting from his wound and that he would not survive. The next day the justice of the peace of the municipality, one Restituto Paman, took Advincula's affidavit in which the declarant reiterated what he had told the lieutenant, but upon this occasion he said he felt better and he indicated to the justice of the peace that he thought he would not die of the wound. On the next day Advincula was taken to the Philippine General Hospital in the City of Manila where he remained for three weeks, at the end of which time he was discharged. In a few days, however, the bullet, which had never been extracted from the shoulder, begun to make trouble again, and Advincula was taken back to the hospital, where blood poisoning from the internal wound soon developed and on August 30 Advincula died. A post-mortem examination showed that the bullet had lodged at the first rib on the left side and that the fourth and fifth ribs were broken. The Court of First Instance of the Province of Cavite found Crispo Lara e Ilano guilty of the offense of murder and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for twenty years, cadena temporal, with the accessory penalties prescribed by law.

The only testimony directly connecting the accused with the shooting of the deceased is contained in the statements made by the deceased subsequent to the shooting and prior to his death; and it is insisted for the appellant that these statements are not admissible in evidence. ISSUE: 1. Whether or not Advinculas statements made prior to his death to the justice of the peace admissible in evidence. Whether or not Advinculas statements made subsequent to the shooting to the Barrio Lieutenant Reyes admissible in evidence. RULING: 1. Advinculas statements made prior to his death to the justice of the peace inadmissible in evidence. 2. Advinculas statements made subsequent to the shooting to the Barrion Lieutenant admissible in evidence as dying declaration. The Court was of the opinion that the affidavit given to the justice of the peace by the deceased on the day after the fatal injury was inflicted is not admissible, for the reason that when that declaration was made the deceased indicated that he was under the impression that the injury would not be fatal. On the other hand the statement made to Ciriaco Reyes, the barrio lieutenant, in the house of Felix Ramirez, was in the opinion of the Court admissible as a dying declaration, because when this declaration was made the deceased was weak, complained of the pain which he was suffering from the wound and stated that he would not survive. It is true that the deceased lived for nearly six weeks after that statement was made, and in this interval recovered, to external appearances, almost completely from the wound. Nevertheless it appears that in the end the deceased died from the same wound; and the admissibility of the first declaration depends upon the state of mind of the deceased when the declaration was made, and not upon the length of time that elapsed between the infliction of the wound and the declarant's death. This statement supplies ample proof that the accused was the author of Advincula's death. However, the case is reduced to simple homicide because the Court opined that no aggravating or attenuating circumstance should be estimated against Lara. 44. THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. JUAN DE LA CRUZ, ET AL., defendants-appellants. G.R. No. L-4740; 12 Phil 87; November 18, 1908 EN BANC Ponente: CARSON, J. FACTS: At about 10 o'clock on the night of the 30th of October, 1907, a band, composed of not less than five persons, two of whom, the appellants in this case, were armed with revolvers, one with a bolo, and there others with clubs, entered the town of Jaen, where they met one Fortunato Jimenez who, with his wife and sister, was on his way to visit a neighbor's house. With threats of violence the band obliged Jimenez and his party to return to his house, and upon arriving there, Timoteo Dizon, one of the band, went up into the house with Jimenez, and threatening him with a revolver, demanded P500. Jimenez had no

money, but was compelled to give up his watch, and at that moment, the appellant Pio Yesma entered the room, and demanded that, if Jimenez would not give the P500, he give at least whatever money he had. Jimenez insisted that he had no money and the robbers left the house. A short time thereafter, the Constabulary forces surprised and attacked the band, killing Dizon and wounding another member of the band. The watch was found upon Dizon's body, and his corpse was identified by Jimenez as that of the person who had first gone up into the house and demanded P500. The appellants were convicted of the crime of robo en cuadrilla (robbery in an armed band). Counsel contends that the judgment of the trial court should be reversed becausethe trial court erred in admitting ante-mortem statements made by Timoteo Dizon in the presence of appellants, and at the time uncontradicted by them, for the purpose of identifying the appellants and establishing their participation in the commission of the crime. The ante-mortem statements admitted by the trial court were an alleged extra-judicial declaration made by the bandit Timoteo Dizon, a few hours before his death, wherein he confessed his guilt of the robbery on the night in question, and stated that the appellants were members of the band. The evidence further discloses that this confession was made to the provincial fiscal and an officer of the Constabulary. ISSUE: Whether or not the ante-mortem statements of Timoteo Dizon are admissible in evidence. RULING: The trial court erred in admitting the ante-mortem statements of Timoteo Dizon, for the purpose of identifying the appellants as members of the band. Section 15 of General Orders, No. 58, provides that in all criminal prosecutions the defendant shall be entitled to be confronted by, and to crossexamine the witnesses against him; and while there are some apparent exceptions to this rule in regard to hearsay testimony, the dying declaration under consideration cannot be said to fall under any of these so-called exceptions. Dying declarations or affirmations, made not under the sanction of an oath but a solemn sense of impending death, are sometimes accepted as evidence, though made extra-judicially and without cross-examination, the declarant not being regarded as a witness whom the defendant is entitled to meet face to face; but the admission of such declarations has always been strictly limited to criminal prosecutions for homicide or murder, and must proceed from the very person alleged to have been killed. The acts or declarations of a conspiring are sometimes admissible as evidence against his co-conspirators, the acts or declarations of each of the conspirators being regarded as the acts or declarations of all. But the ground for the admission of such evidence clearly requires that such acts or declarations must have been made during the progress of the conspiracy and in pursuance of the ends for which it had been formed, and not after the transaction had ended; and further, before such evidence can be admitted it must appear by competent evidence that the conspiracy actually existed and that the accused were members of the conspiracy. The declaration under consideration was made after the transaction to which it referred was at an end, was not made in pursuance of the conspiracy, and was clearly inadmissible for the purpose of proving that the defendants were co-conspirators with the defendant.

THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. DALMACEO ANTIPOLO, defendantappellant. March 6, 1918; 37 Phil 726; G.R. No. L-13109 EN BANC Ponente: FISHER, J. FACTS: The appellant Dalmaceo Antipolo was prosecuted in the Court of First Instance of the Province of Batangas, charged with the murder of one Fortunato Dinal. The trial court convicted him of homicide and from that decision he was appealed. One of the errors assigned is based upon the refusal of the trial judge to permit Susana Ezpeleta, the widow of Fortunato Dinal, to testify as a witness on behalf of the defense concerning certain alleged dying declarations. The witness was called to the stand and having stated that she is the widow of Fortunato Dinal was asked: On what occasion did your husband die? To this question the fiscal objected upon the following ground: I object to the testimony of this witness. She has just testified that she is the widow of the deceased, Fortunato Dinal, and that being so I believe that she is not competent to testify under the rules and procedure in either civil or criminal cases, unless it be with the consent of her husband, and as he is dead and cannot grant that permission, it follows that this witness is disqualified from testifying in this case in which her husband is the injured party. Counsel for defendant insisted that the witness was competent, arguing that the disqualification which the fiscal evidently had in mind relates only to cases in which a husband or wife of one of the parties to a proceeding is called to testify; that the parties to the prosecution of a criminal case are the Government and the accused; that, furthermore the marriage of Dinal to the witness having been dissolved by the death of her husband, she is no longer his wife, and therefore not subject to any disqualification arising from the status of marriage. These propositions were rejected by the trial judge, and the objection of the fiscal as to the testimony of the woman Ezpeleta was sustained. ISSUE: Whether or not the widow can testify as to her husbands dying declaration. RULING: YES. Section 58 of General Orders No. 58 (1900) reads as follows: Except with the consent of both, or except in cases of crime committed by one against the other, neither husband nor wife shall be a competent witness for or against the other in a criminal action or proceeding to which one or both shall be parties. The reasons for this rule are stated in Underhills work on Criminal Evidence (second edition) on page 346: At common law, neither a husband nor a wife was a competent witness for or against the other in any judicial proceedings, civil or criminal, to which the other was a party. . . . If either were recognized as a competent witness against the

other who was accused of crime, . . . a very serious injury would be done to the harmony and happiness of husband and wife and the confidence which should exist between them. Meanwhile, in Greenleafs classical work on evidence, in section 337 [vol. I], the author says, in stating the reasons for the rule at common law: The great object of the rule is to secure domestic happiness by placing the protecting seal of the law upon all confidential communications between husband and wife; and whatever has come to the knowledge of either by means of the hallowed confidence which that relation inspires, cannot be afterwards divulged in testimony even though the other party be no longer living. However, this case does not fall with the text of the statute or the reason upon which it is based. The purpose of section 58 is to protect accused persons against statements made in the confidence engendered by the marital relation, and to relieve the husband or wife to whom such confidential communications might have been made from the obligation of revealing them to the prejudice of the other spouse. Obviously, when a person at the point of death as a result of injuries he has suffered makes a statement regarding the manner in which he received those injuries, the communication so made is in no sense confidential. On the contrary, such a communication is made for the express purpose that it may be communicated after the death of the declarant to the authorities concerned in inquiring into the cause of his death. The declarations of a deceased person while in anticipation of certain impending death, concerning the circumstances leading up to the death, are admissible in a prosecution of the person charged with killing the declarant. (U. S. vs. Gil, 13 Phil., Rep., 530.) Such dying declarations are admissible in favor of the defendant as well as against him. (Mattox vs. U. S., 146 U. S., 140.) It has been expressly held in several jurisdictions in the United States that the widow of the deceased may testify regarding his dying declarations. In the case of the State vs. Ryan (30 La. Ann., 1176), cited by appellant in his brief, the court said: The Court saw no possible reason for excluding the wifes testimony . . . after the husbands death she is no longer his wife, and the rules of evidence, as between husbands and wives, are no longer applicable. The Court was of the opinion that the court below erred in excluding the testimony of the witness Susana Ezpeleta, and that by reason of such exclusion, the accused was deprived of one of his essential rights. That being the case the Court ordered that a new trial must be granted.