GR 40903; (April, 1934) (Digest)
G.R. No. 40903 ; April 28, 1934
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. MARCELINO ACOSTA Y RIVERA, defendant-appellant.
FACTS
The accused, Marcelino Acosta y Rivera, lived with Gregoria Buenvenida and her two daughters, including the 14-year-old victim Magdalena Asegurado. In July 1933, the accused, armed with a penknife and using threats, raped Magdalena while she was sleeping. At the time, the accused was suffering from gonorrhea, which he transmitted to the victim. The victim did not immediately report the rape. By September 1933, she became seriously ill, was hospitalized, and diagnosed with gonorrhea and peritonitis. Before her death on October 22, 1933, she made ante-mortem statements to a doctor, a friend, and police detectives identifying the accused as her rapist. Medical testimony established that her death from peritonitis was a direct consequence of the gonorrhea infection contracted from the rape.
ISSUE
Whether the accused should be convicted of the separate crimes of rape and homicide or the single complex crime of rape with homicide.
RULING
The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment. It ruled that the proven facts constitute the complex crime of rape with homicide under Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code, as the homicide (death) resulted from a single act of rape. The penalty for the complex crime is reclusion temporal in its maximum degree. Considering the aggravating circumstance of nocturnity and abuse of superior strength, and the mitigating circumstance of lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong, the Court applied the Indeterminate Sentence Law. The accused was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty ranging from twelve years of prision mayor to twenty years of reclusion temporal, with accessory penalties, and ordered to indemnify the victim’s heirs.
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