Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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* THIRD DIVISION.
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FRANCISCO, J.:
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Appellant Jose Encarnacion Malimit, charged with and
convicted 2 of the special complex crime 3of robbery with
homicide, was meted by the trial court the penalty of
reclusion perpetua. He was also ordered to indemnify the
heirs of Onofre Malaki the sum of Fifty Thousand Pesos
(P50,000.00) without subsidiary 4
imprisonment in case of
insolvency, and to pay the cost.
In this appeal, appellant asks for his acquittal alleging
that the trial court committed the following errors, to wit:
II
III
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13 See People v. Comia, 236 SCRA 185 (1994); See also People v.
Watson, 278 Ala. 425, 178 So. 2d 819, 821 (1965).
14 Rules of Court, Rule 132, Section 11. Impeachment of the adverse
partys witness.A witness may be impeached by the party against
whom he was called, by contradictory evidence, by evidence that his
general reputation for truth, honesty or integrity is bad, or by evidence
that he has made at some other times statements inconsistent with his
present testimony, but not by evidence of particular wrongful acts, except
that it may be shown by the examination of the witness, or the record of
the judgment, that he has been convicted of an offense. (Italics ours)
15 People v. Pacabes, 137 SCRA 158 (1985); See also People v. Danico,
208 SCRA 472 (1992), and People v. Caraig, 202 SCRA 357 (1991).
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right against self-incrimination. Likewise, appellant
sought for their exclusion because during the custodial
investigation, wherein he pointed to the investigating
policemen the place where he hid Malakis wallet, he was
not informed of his constitutional rights.
We are not persuaded. The right against self-
incrimination guaranteed under our fundamental law finds
no application in this case. This right,
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as put by Mr. Justice
Holmes in Holt vs. United States, x x x is a prohibition of
the use of physical or moral compulsion, to extort
communications from him x x x. It is simply a prohibition
against legal process to extract from the [accused]s
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own
lips, against his will, admission of his guilt. It does not
apply to the instant case where the evidence sought to be
excluded is not an incriminating statement but an object
evidence. Wigmore, discussing the question now before us
in his treatise on evidence, thus, said:
If, in other words (the rule) created inviolability not only for his
[physical control of his] own vocal utterances, but also for his
physical control in whatever form exercised, then, it would be
possible for a guilty person to shut himself up in his house, with all
the tools and indicia of his crime, and defy the authority of the law
to employ in evidence anything that might be obtained by forcibly
overthrowing his possession and compelling the surrender of the
evidential articlesa clear reductio ad absurdum.In other words, it
is not merely compulsion that is the kernel of the privilege, *** but
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testimonial compulsion.
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severe external hemorrhage due to multiple stab wounds;
(3) witness Elmer Ladica saw the appellant on August 6,
1991, accompanied by some policemen, retrieve Malakis
wallet underneath
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a stone at the seashore in Barangay
Hingatungan; (4) appellant himself admitted in his
testimony that on August 6, 1991, he accompanied several 37
policemen to the seashore where he hid Malakis wallet;
and (5) appellants flight and his subsequent disappearance
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from Hingatungan immediately after the incident.
On the other hand, appellants version of the story does
not inspire belief. He maintains that on that fateful night
he was in his house together with his wife. He claims that
they had just arrived from a gambling spree allegedly in
the house of a certain Maui Petalcorin. Surprisingly,
however, the defense did not bother to call appellants wife
to the witness stand to corroborate appellants alibi.
Neither did it present as witness Maui Petalcorin, or any
other person who may have seen the appellant in the said
place, if only to provide a semblance of truth to this
assertion. As the defense of alibi is weak in view of the
positive identification
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of the appellant by the prosecution
witnesses, it becomes weaker because of the unexplained 40
failure of the defense to present any corroboration.
Furthermore, proof that appellant was in his house when
the crime was committed is not enough. Appellant must
likewise demonstrate that he could not have been
physically present at
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