US vs Eufrasio Alano

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US vs Eufrasio Alano
G.R. No. L-11021
December 1, 1915

Facts:

This cause was instituted upon a complaint filed by the prosecuting attorney, on August 1, 1914, charging Eufrasio Alano y Agbuya with the crime of homicide, and on October 19th of the same year the trial court rendered judgment sentencing the defendant to the penalty of fourteen years eight months and one day of cadena temporal, to the accessory penalties, and to pay the costs. From this judgment defendant appealed.

Issue:

W/O the accused committed the crime or homicide or death or physical injuries inflicted under exceptional circumstances?

Held:

From the record it appears, then, to have been fully proven that, because the defendant caught his wife, Teresa Marcelo, in the act of committing adultery with Martin Gonzalez, after he had unsuccessfully pursued the latter, who succeeding in escaping and hiding himself, he assaulted the adultress and inflicted upon her twenty-four wounds which produced her death a few moments afterwards.

For the proper imposition of the penalty prescribed by law, account must be taken of the extenuating circumstance that the defendant acted upon an impulse of passion and obfuscation, and also of the special circumstance provided in article 11 of the Code, as amended by Act No. 2142; and, as there is no aggravating circumstance to offset these extenuating ones, the penalty of destierro (banishment) should be imposed upon him in the minimum degree.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment appealed from is reversed and Eufrasio Alano y Agbuya should be sentenced, as he is hereby, to the penalty of six months and one day of banishment (destierro) from the district of Malate, and he shall not reside or enter within a radius of twenty-five kilometers from the church of the said district during the period of this sentence. The costs of both instances shall, furthermore, be charged against him, without prejudice to his being furnished a certified copy of this decision and placed at the disposal of the Court of First Instance, so that he may be released from custody in order to serve out the said sentence of banishment (destierro). So ordered.