People v. Domasian

On the morning of March 11, 1982, in Lopez, Quezon, a man approached an 8-year-old boy walking with a classmate. He asked the boy to help get the boy's father's signature on a medical certificate. The boy rode with him by tricycle to Calantipayan. There the man forced him onto a minibus, holding him firmly and threatening that he would not be returned to his father unless he stopped crying. In Gumaca the man handed a jeepney driver an envelope addressed to the boy's father, Dr. Enrique Agra, and took the boy on another tricycle. The driver grew suspicious when the man claimed they were brothers and reported them to barangay tanods. When they gave chase, the man fled and left the boy behind. The detention lasted about three hours. That afternoon, after the boy was home, his father received a ransom note demanding P1 million. The NBI found the note written by Dr. Samson Tan, a resident physician at the Agras' hospital. The boy picked out Pablito Domasian from police photographs. Both were convicted of kidnapping with serious illegal detention and sentenced to reclusion perpetua.

1. 1Whether the prosecution witnesses and the handwriting evidence were credible.
2. 2Whether the crime was kidnapping with serious illegal detention although the boy was never placed in an enclosure.
3. 3Whether sending the ransom note after the boy was freed was an impossible crime.
4. 4Whether conspiracy was proved, and whether constitutional violations vitiated the conviction.

Affirmed (Cruz, J.). The boy, his classmate and the tricycle driver positively identified Domasian and had no motive to lie, so his alibi failed. On conflicting expert opinions, the trial court properly preferred the NBI's more comprehensive analysis. It was bolstered by Dr. Agra, who had seen Tan's handwriting daily for four years. Kidnapping under Article 267 is committed not only by placing a person in an enclosure but by detaining him or depriving him of liberty in any manner. Domasian, a private individual, restrained the boy from going home and dragged him from vehicle to vehicle. The victim was a minor, so paragraph 4 applied. Tan argued that Article 4(2) covers only crimes against persons or property, not liberty. The Court held that Article 4(1) applied to him. The kidnapping was consummated when Domasian deprived the boy of liberty, before the ransom note arrived. Nothing was inherently impossible and the means were not inadequate. Delivering the note after the rescue did not extinguish the offense. It would only have raised the penalty to death, which the Constitution then barred. Conspiracy was inferred from complementary acts aimed at extorting P1 million: Domasian's detention of the boy, Tan's writing of the note, and Domasian's delivery of it. The motive was Dr. Agra's refusal of Tan's loan request six days earlier. Domasian's claims of warrantless arrest and torture did not affect the verdict, because he never gave a confession. The handwriting samples were taken by Dr. Agra himself, and under People v. Marti the Bill of Rights does not apply to private acts. A copy of the decision was sent to the Commission on Human Rights to look into Domasian's allegations.