GR L 12439; (August, 1917)

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-12439; August 4, 1917

THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
SY TOON, CHUA HAM TIA GUAN, and FRANCISCA CARMONA, defendants-appellants.

Gibbs, McDonough and Blanco for appellants.
Attorney-General Avanceña for appellee.

MALCOLM, J.:

The accused were charged in the Court of First Instance of the city of Manila with knowingly visiting a dive or resort were opium smoked. The trial judge in an exhaustive decision found the defendants guilty as charged and sentenced each of them to suffer the penalty of one month’s imprisonment, to pay a fine of P100, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay one-fourth of the costs.

Appellants assign two errors: (1) That the premises in which the defendants were arrested is not a dive or resort where opium is smoked; (2) that the trial court erred in finding appellants guilty under the proof. The assignments of error can be considered together.

It is admitted that the defendants were arrested at the premises No. 561 Juan Luna, city of Manila, which is claimed to be a dive or resort where opium is smoked, and that the substance produced at the trial was opium. When we pass on to consider whether or not in police jargon this place was “an opium joint,” we meet with difficulty. Necessarily, this must be true, for the consummation of crimes such as those relating to a violation of opium law requires secrecy, They can usually only be established by proof of facts and circumstances, from which the inference of guilt is so strong as to exclude reasonable doubt.

What in the present case are the facts and circumstances which tend to indicate that the defendants were visiting an opium joint? Briefly, they are these:

The doors of the house were strongly barricaded. The doors were constructed of heavy timbers with iron bolts slipped on the inside. Small quantities of opium were found. Opium fumes were detected. The house had the reputation of being an opium joint. Arrests had been made there previously for violation of the opium law. One policeman testified that he had raided this particular house fifty times.

The appellants rely on the case of U. S. vs. Ong To ([1914] 28 Phil., 216) to substantiate their claim that evidence of the general reputation of the house was improperly admitted. In connection with this case and its applicability here, it is sufficient to note one fact: The defendant and appellant in the cited case was the lessee of the opium just, while in the present case the defendants and appellants were only visitors, who had no control over the house.

Cases of somewhat analogous character are those which concern the keeping of disorderly houses. In such a case, that of State vs. Steen ([1904] 104 N. W., 96), it was said that —

In cases of this nature also, the statute permits a species of evidence not usually admissible in criminal cases — evidence of the general reputation of the house.

We think, therefore, that it is sufficiently established that the premises No. 561 Calle Juan Luna, city of Manila, was an opium joint, and that the defendants knowingly visited it as such. If the defendants had a valid excuse for their presence in this house, the burden of proof was upon them. (U. S. vs. Ten Yu [1912], 24 Phil. 1, 8; State of Indiana vs. Bridgewater [1908], 171 Ind., 1.) The excuses presented by the defendants were weak and failed to establish legitimate justification.

The judgment of the lower court is affirmed, with costs of this instance against the appellants. So ordered.

Arellano, C.J., Carson, Araullo and Street, JJ., concur.
Johnson, J., took no part.

Batas Pinas