GR 39415; (October, 1933) (Digest)
G.R. No. 39415; October 17, 1933
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. BONIFACIO ACOPIO, defendant-appellant.
FACTS
The defendant-appellant, Bonifacio Acopio, was initially charged with homicide in the justice of the peace court for killing Vicente Miro on February 13, 1933, to which he pleaded guilty. The provincial fiscal later filed an amended information in the Court of First Instance charging him with murder, alleging the killing was committed with alevosia (treachery) and premeditation. The defendant pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. The evidence established that two days prior to the killing, the defendant had embraced the deceased’s niece against her will, and the deceased had rebuked him. On the day of the incident, the defendant first waited at the deceased’s house and struck him with a cane when he arrived. Later, as the deceased passed through a coconut grove, the defendant emerged from behind a tree and attacked him from behind with a bolo, inflicting fatal wounds. He then pursued the deceased’s wife and son. The defendant claimed self-defense, but the trial court found the testimonies of the victim’s wife and son credible and rejected the defendant’s version.
ISSUE
Whether the trial court erred in convicting the defendant of murder, qualified by treachery (alevosia), instead of homicide, and in not appreciating several mitigating circumstances.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction for murder. The manner of attack—where the defendant concealed himself behind a coconut tree and struck the deceased from behind without warning—constituted alevosia (treachery), which qualified the killing as murder. The Court upheld the trial court’s finding that only one mitigating circumstance, lack of instruction (illiteracy), was present. It rejected the defendant’s claims of other mitigating circumstances, such as incomplete self-defense, lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong, voluntary surrender, voluntary confession of guilt (as the guilty plea was only to the initial homicide charge, not murder), fear of grave danger, and illness diminishing willpower, as unsupported by the evidence. The aggravating circumstance of premeditation was not proven. The penalty imposed by the trial court (seventeen years, four months, and one day of reclusion temporal) was affirmed.
AI Generated by Armztrong.