People v. Oanis

On December 24, 1938, the Constabulary provincial inspector in Cabanatuan received a telegram reporting that the escaped convict Anselmo Balagtas was in Cabanatuan with a bailarina named Irene, and directing the recipient to "get him dead or alive." Constabulary corporal Alberto Galanta and other soldiers were shown the telegram and a newspaper photo of Balagtas. They and chief of police Antonio Oanis were instructed to arrest him and to follow the telegram only if overpowered. At the house where Irene lived, a woman pointed out Irene's room and said she was sleeping with her paramour. Seeing a man asleep with his back to the door, Oanis and Galanta fired at him with their revolvers, simultaneously or successively. The man killed was not Balagtas but Serapio Tecson, Irene's paramour and a peaceful and innocent citizen; according to Irene, he was unarmed. The two were charged with murder, and the trial court convicted them of homicide through reckless imprudence. On appeal they claimed an innocent mistake of fact made in the honest performance of official duty. The trial court had rejected their contradictory accounts and believed Irene, and the Supreme Court upheld those findings.

1. 1Whether the accused are exempt from liability on the ground of an honest mistake of fact, as in U.S. v. Ah Chong
2. 2Whether the killing was homicide through reckless imprudence or murder
3. 3Whether acting in the performance of a duty justifies or mitigates the killing

The accused were not exempt; they were guilty of murder, with a mitigating circumstance. Mistake of fact (ignorantia facti excusat) applies only when the mistake is made without fault or carelessness. Unlike the accused in Ah Chong, these accused were not pressed to act at once. The man was asleep, so they had time to verify his identity and make a bloodless arrest. Even Balagtas was to be arrested, and taken dead or alive only if he resisted. "Notoriety rightly supplies a basis for redoubled official alertness and vigilance; it never can justify precipitate action at the cost of human life." The crime was not criminal negligence, because the killing was intentional. A deliberate intent to do an unlawful act is inconsistent with reckless imprudence. Where the unlawful act is wilfully done, a mistake in the identity of the intended victim cannot be treated as reckless imprudence. Since the victim was killed while asleep, treachery (alevosia) qualified the killing as murder. The justifying circumstance in Article 11(5) of the Revised Penal Code has two requisites: (a) the offender acted in the performance of a duty or the lawful exercise of a right, and (b) the injury was the necessary consequence of that performance or exercise. Only the first was present, because the accused exceeded their duty by killing without resistance or inquiry. Article 69 therefore lowers the penalty by one or two degrees. Both accused were found guilty of murder, and each was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of five years of prision correccional to fifteen years of reclusion temporal, with the accessories of the law. They were ordered to pay the heirs P2,000 jointly and severally, with costs.