HOW TO CREATE A CASE DIGEST AND ANSWER LAW SCHOOL EXAMINATION

HOW TO CREATE A CASE DIGEST AND ANSWER LAW SCHOOL EXAMINATION

PARTS OF CASE DIGEST

One. Doctrine/Summary of the Case

Two. Pertinent Facts

Three. Decisions of the lower courts (First level court, second level court and appellate court)

Four. Relevant Issue/s

Five. Ruling of the Supreme Court

Six. Ratio decidendi

CASE DIGEST (One) People versus Silvestre and Atienza. G.R. Number L-three-five-seven-four-eight nineteen thirty-one

December fourteen,

FACTS: Martin Atienza was convicted as principal by direct participation and Romana Silvestre as accomplice of the crime of arson by the Court of First Instance. On the night of November twenty-five, nineteen thirty, while Nicolas de la Cruz and his wife, Antonia de la Cruz, were gathered together with the appellants herein after supper, Martin Atienza told to the said couple to take their furniture out of the house because he was going to set fire to it. Upon being asked by Nicolas and Antonia why he wanted to set fire to the house, he answered that it was the only way he could revenged upon the people of Masocol, who, he said, had instigated the charge of adultery against him and his co-defendant, Romana Silvestre. As Martin Atienza was at that time armed with a pistol, no one dared say anything to him, not even Romana Silvestre, who was about a meter away from her co-defendant. Alarmed at what Martin Atienza had said, the couple left the house at once to communicate with the barrio lieutenant, Buenaventura Ania, as to what they had just heard Martin Atienza say; but they had hardly gone a hundred arms' length when they heard cries of "Fire! Fire!" Turning back they saw their home in flames. The fire destroyed about forty-eight houses. Romana listened to her co-defendant's threat without raising a protest, and did not give the alarm when the latter set fire to the house.

December fourteen,

ISSUE: Whether or not Romana can be convicted as accomplice?

RULING:

No. Article fourteen of the Penal Code, in connection with Article thirteen defines an accomplice to be one who does not take a direct part in the commission of the act, who does not force or induce others to commit it, nor cooperates in the commission of the act by another act without which it would not have been accomplished, yet cooperates in the execution of the act by previous or simultaneous actions.

In the case of Romana, there is no evidence of moral or material cooperation and none of an agreement to commit the crime in question. Her mere presence and silence while they are simultaneous acts, do not constitute cooperation, for it does not appear that they encouraged or nerved Martin Atienza to commit the crime of arson; and as for her failure to give the alarm, that being a subsequent act, it does not make her liable as an accomplice.

Mere passive presence at the scene of another's crime, mere silence and failure to give the alarm, without evidence of agreement or conspiracy, do not constitute the cooperation required by Article fourteen of the Penal Code for complicity in the commission of the crime witnessed passively, or with regard to which one has kept silent.

DECISION is affirmed with reference to Martin Atienza and reversed with reference to Romana Silvestre, who was acquitted.