G.R. No.

L-43530

August 3, 1935

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. AURELIO LAMAHANG (NAMAJA), defendant-appellant. FACTS: At early dawn on March 2, 1935, policeman Jose Tomambing, who was patrolling his beat on Delgado and C.R. Fuentes streets of the City of Iloilo, caught the accused in the act of making an opening with an iron bar on the wall of a store of cheap goods located on the last named street. At that time the owner of the store, Tan Yu, was sleeping inside with another Chinaman. The accused had only succeeded in breaking one board and in unfastening another from the wall, when the policeman showed up, who instantly arrested him and placed him under custody. ISSUE: Should the defendant be charge of the crime attempted robbery?

HELD: No, he should be charged with attempted trespass to dwelling. In the instant case, there was no clear intent to take possession, for the purpose of gain, of some personal property belonging to another. we can only infer that his intent was to enter by force, other inferences are not justified by facts.

G.R. No. L-16486 THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appelle, vs. CALIXTO VALDEZ Y QUIRI, defendant-appellant.

FACTS: The accused was in charge of a crew of a small boat tasked to raise the anchor of an interisland steamer. The work raising the anchor seems to have proceeded too slowly to satisfy the accused, and he accordingly began to abuse the men with offensive epithets. Upon this Venancio Gargantel remonstrated, saying that it would be better, and they would work better, if he would not insult them. The accused took this remonstrance as a display of insubordination; and rising in rage he moved towards Venancio, with a big knife in hand, threatening to stab him. At the instant when the accused had attained to within a few feet of Venancio, the latter, evidently believing himself in great and immediate peril, threw himself into the water and disappeared beneath its surface to be seen no more. ISSUE: Is the defendant guilty of Homicide?

HELD: Yes, the death of the victim was the direct, natural and logical consequence of the felonious acts of the accused. Without the accused acting as such, the death would have not occurred.

G.R. No. L-32624 February 12, 1980 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. PACIANO NIERRA alias Pacing, GAUDENCIA NIERRA, FELICISIMO DOBLEN alias Simoy and VICENTE ROJAS, accused-appellants; GASPAR MISA, accused whose death sentence is under automatic review. FACTS: According to the evidence of the prosecution, Juliana Gadugdug-Nierra, 52, and Pagano Nierra, 39, her brother-inlaw, were competitors in the businesses of launch transportation and the sale of soft drinks in Barrio Tinago, General Santos City. In order to monopolize those businesses in the locality, Paciano Nierra conceived the Idea of liquidating his competitor, Juliana. For that purpose, Felicisimo Doblen, a cousin-in-law of Paciano, accompanied to Paciano's house in the afternoon of July 4, 1969 Gaspar Misa, 29, a convicted murderer who in 1965 had escaped from the Davao Penal Colony. Upstairs in the bedroom of Paciano's house, Misa, in the presence of Gaudencia Garrido-Nierra, the wife of Paciano, agreed to kill Juliana in consideration of three thousand pesos. Paciano promised that in the morning after the killing he would pay Misa four hundred pesos near the municipal hall of Tupi, South Cotabato which is about forty kilometers away from General Santos City. The balance would be paid in the same place on August 12, 1969. In the evening of July 6, 1969, between seven and eight o'clock that night, the unwary Juliana went to the beach where she was accustomed to void and when she squatted, Misa unexpectedly appeared behind her, held her hair, thus tilting her face, and while in that posture, he inserted into her mouth the muzzle of the pistol and fired it. Paciano and Gaudencia, who were near the beach, witnessed the actual killing. ISSUE: Are the accused-appellant guilty of conspiracy to commit murder?

HELD: Yes, a conspiracy exist when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of a felony and decides to commit it. Misa and Paciano Nierra are coconspirator. The Nierras were co-principals by inducement. By acting as lookouts during the perpetration of the killing, they became co-principals by cooperation as well. The activities of Doblen and Rojas indubitably show that they had community of design with the Nierra spouses and Misa in the assassination of Juliana Nierra.