Aggravating Circumstances

Question 1

Kinds of Aggravating Circumstances

Answer 1

1. Generic
   a. Apply generally to all crimes
   b. Can be offset by an ordinary mitigating circumstance
   c. Increase the penalty to the maximum period of penalty prescribed in the law provided alleged in the information as required under RRCP
2. Qualifying
   a. Cannot be offset by any mitigating circumstance
   b. Change the nature of the crime and designation of the offense
   c. Must be alleged in the information
   d. Must be proved as conclusively as the guilt of the offender

Question 2

What are the aggravating circumstances? (first half)

Answer 2

1. Abuse of official position
2. Contempt or insult to public authorities
3. Disregard of age, sex, or dwelling of the
   offended party
4. Abuse of confidence and obvious
   ungratefulness
5. Palace and places of commission of
   offense
6. Nighttime, uninhabited place or band
7. On occasion of calamity or misfortune
8. Aid of armed men, etc.
9. Recidivist
10. Reiteracion or habituality

Question 3

What are the aggravating circumstances? (second half)

Answer 3

11. Price, reward, or promise
12. By means of inundation, fire, etc.
13. Evident premeditation
14. Craft, fraud or disguise
15. Superior strength or means to weaken
    the defense
16. Treachery
17. Ignominy
18. Unlawful entry/ Breaking wall
19. Aid of minor or by means of motor vehicle
    or other similar means
20. Cruelty

Question 4

Abuse of Official Position

Answer 4

To be considered aggravating, the public official must have used influence, prestige, and ascendancy which his office gives him in realizing his purpose. There must be an intimate connection between the offense and office of accused.

Question 5

Insult to public authorities

Answer 5

Covers not only persons in authority but also agents of persons in authority and other public officers. To be considered, the public authority is engaged in the discharge of his duties and the offender knows that he is a public authority.

Question 6

Age, sex, rank, dwelling

Answer 6

There must be proof that offender deliberately intended to offend or insult the offended with these four circumstances.
a. Rank - high social position. It should be clearly demonstrated that the accused deliberately intended to act with insult on account of his rank.
b. Sex - must be shown that the offender specially saw to it that the victim would be a woman.
c. Age - applies in cases where the victim is of tender
age or is of old age.
d. Dwelling - includes dependencies, staircase, and enclosures under the house. It must be a building or structure exclusively used for rest and comfort. The rationale for this is because it reveals the offender’s perversity in deliberately invading the tranquillity of one’s domicile. It is not aggravating if the offended has given provocation or if both parties live there.

Question 7

Abuse of confidence/obvious ungratefulness

Answer 7

Requisites:
1. Offended party had trusted the offender.
2. Offender abused such trust by committing
a crime against offended party.
3. Abuse of confidence facilitated the
commission of the crime.

Question 8

Palace of the Chief Executive, etc.

Answer 8

Requisites:
The crime be committed:
1. In the palace of the Chief Executive; or
2. In his presence; or
3. Where public authorities are engaged in
the discharge of their duties; or
4. In a place dedicated to religious worship.

Question 9

Nightime/Nocturnity

Answer 9

Is the period of time after sunset to sunrise, from dusk to dawn.
Requisites:
1. It facilitated the commission of the crime
2. It especially sought for by the offender to
ensure the commission of the crime or for
the purpose of impunity
3. It facilitated the commission of the crime by insuring the offender’s immunity from capture
4. The place where the crime was committed was not illuminated.

Question 10

Uninhabited place

Answer 10

Determined by the distance of the nearest house to the scene and WON in the place of the offense, there was a possibility of the victim receiving some help.

To be aggravating, it is necessary that the
offender took advantage of the place and purposely
availed of it as to make it easier to commit the
crime.

Question 11

Band (cuadrilla)

Answer 11

Consists of:

a. More than 3 persons
b. Armed malefactors
c. Acting together in the commission of an offense

Question 12

Calamity or misfortune

Answer 12

The crime is committed on the occasion of a
conflagration, shipwreck, earthquake, epidemic or
other calamity or misfortune.

Question 13

Aid of Armed Men

Answer 13

Elements:

a. The armed men took part in the commission of crime indirectly/directly
b. Accused availed himself of their aid or relied upon them when the crime was committed.

Question 14

Habituality

Answer 14

1. Recidivism
2. Reiteracion
3. Habitual delinquency
4. Quasi‐recidivism

Question 15

Recidivist

Answer 15

One who at the time of his trial for one crime shall have been previously convicted by final judgment of another crime embraced in the same title of the RPC.

Question 16

Reiteracion

Answer 16

Offender has been previously punished w/ an equal or greater penalty or two or more crimes w/ lighter penalty.

Question 17

Habitual delinquency

Answer 17

Within a period of 10 years from his release or last conviction; of the crimes of falsification, robbery, estafa, theft, serious/less physical injuries, he is found guilty of said crimes a third time or oftener.

Question 18

Quasi‐recidivism

Answer 18

special aggravating circumstance where a person, after having been convicted by final judgment, shall commit a new felony before beginning to serve such sentence, or while serving the same.

Question 19

Price, promise reward

Answer 19

Requisites:

1. There are at least two principals
   a. Principal by inducement
   b. Principal by direct participation
2. The price, reward, or promise should be
   previous to and in consideration of the
   commission of the criminal act.

Question 20

Inundation, Fire

Answer 20

Aggravating - If the crime is committed by means of:
1. Inundation
2. Fire
3. Explosion
4. Stranding of the vessel or intentional
damage thereto
5. Derailment of locomotive; or
6. By use of any other artifice involving great
waste and ruin

if one of these circumstances was a means to kill, the crime is murder and no longer aggravating.

Question 21

Evident premeditation

Answer 21

Elements:

a. The time when the offender determined to commit the crime
b. An act manifestly indicating that he has clung to his determination
c. Sufficient lapse of time between such determination and execution to allow him to reflect upon the consequences of his act.

Question 22

Essence of evident premeditation

Answer 22

The execution of the criminal act must be
preceded by cool thought and reflection upon the
resolution to carry out the criminal intent during
the space of time sufficient to arrive at a calm
judgment.

Question 23

Craft, fraud, disguise

Answer 23

1. Craft – cunning/intellectual trickery or chicanery resorted to by the accused to carry out his evil design.
2. Fraud – constitutes deceit and manifested by insidious words/machination
3. Disguise - means resorting to any device to
   conceal identity. If in spite of the
   disguise, the offender was recognized, disguise
   cannot be aggravating.

Question 24

Abuse of superior strength

Answer 24

when the offenders intentionally and purposely employ excessive force out of proportion to the means of defense available to the offended party.

There must be evidence of notorious inequality of
forces between the offender and the offended
party in their age, size and strength, and that the
offender took advantage of such superior strength
in committing the crime.

Question 25

Treachery (Alevosia)

Answer 25

when the offender commits any of the crimes against person employing means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend directly and especially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising from the defense which the offended party may make.

Question 26

Ignominy

Answer 26

It pertains to the moral order, which adds disgrace to the material injury caused by the crime. Ignominy adds insult to injury or adds shame to the natural effects of the crime. Ignominy shocks the
moral conscience of man.

Question 27

Unlawful entry/breaking of wall

Answer 27

There is unlawful entry when an entrance is thru a way not intended for that purpose. It qualifies the crime of theft to robbery.

Question 28

Aid of minors/use of motor vehicles

Answer 28

The use of a minor in the commission of the crime
shows the greater perversity of the offender
because he is educating the innocent minor in
committing a crime

The use of motor vehicles in the commission of a
crime poses difficulties to the authorities in
apprehending the offenders.

Question 29

Cruelty

Answer 29

To be aggravating, there must be evidence to show that the acts were done while the victim was ALIVE and that the offender delighted in the suffering of the victim. The victim must suffer slowly and gradually causing unnecessary moral and physical pain.