G.R. No. 4973 : THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. BERNABE CATIPON, ET AL., defendants. RUFINO DAVALOS, appellant.; September 18, 1909

FACTS:
Appellant Rufino Davalos was convicted by the trial court of the complex crime of robo con lesiones graves (robbery with grave physical injuries). The crime was committed by an armed band, resulting in the offended party’s left leg being rendered useless for life. The commission of the offense was further marked by the aggravating circumstances of nocturnity and its commission in the house of the offended party. The crime is defined and penalized under subsection 3 of Article 503, read together with Article 504 of the Penal Code. The trial court imposed a penalty of seventeen years, four months, and one day of cadena temporal.

ISSUE:
Whether the trial court correctly applied the penalty for robo con lesiones graves committed by an armed band, particularly in light of the provisions of Article 504 of the Penal Code and the presence of additional aggravating circumstances.

RULING:
The Supreme Court sustained the findings of the trial judge as to the appellant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the Court held that the trial court erred in the application of the penalty.

The Court clarified that Article 504 of the Penal Code stipulates that when robberies referred to in subsections 3, 4, and 5 of Article 503 are committed by an armed band, the penalty to be imposed is the maximum degree of the penalties prescribed in those subsections. This means that the base penalty range (in this case, for Article 503, subsection 3, from seventeen years and four months to twenty years of cadena temporal) is already considered the “maximum degree” due to the armed band. This “maximum degree” itself must then be divided into three separate degrees for the purpose of applying any other aggravating or extenuating circumstances.

Given that two additional aggravating circumstances (nocturnity and commission in the house of the offended party) were present and no extenuating circumstances, the penalty should be imposed in the maximum degree of this already maximum degree. The maximum of the maximum degree of cadena temporal is from nineteen years, one month, and eleven days to twenty years.

Therefore, the Supreme Court modified the judgment of the trial court by imposing the penalty of nineteen years, one month, and eleven days of cadena temporal, instead of the seventeen years, four months, and one day initially imposed. The judgment, as thus modified, was affirmed.