[ G.R. No. 4935. October 25, 1909 ] 14 Phil. 310
[ G.R. No. 4935. October 25, 1909 ]
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JAMES L. BROBST, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
CARSON, J.:
The defendant, James L. Brobst, and another American named Mann, were engaged in work on a mine located in the municipality of Masbate, where they gave employment to a number of native laborers. Mann discharged one of these laborers named Simeon Saldivar, warned him not to come back on the premises, and told the defendant not to employ him again, because he was a thief and a disturbing element with the other laborers. A few days afterwards, some time after 6 o’clock on the morning of the 10th of July, 1907, Saldivar in company with three or four others, went to the mine to look for work. The defendant, who at that time was dressing himself inside his tent, which was erected on the mining property, when he caught sight of Saldivar, ordered him off the place, exclaiming in bad Spanish, “Sigue, Vamus!” (Begone). Saldivar made no move to leave, and although the order was repeated, merely smiled or grinned at the defendant, where-upon the latter became enraged, took three steps toward Saldivar, and struck him a powerful blow with his closed fist on the left side, just over the lower ribs, at the point where the handle of Saldivar’s bolo lay against the belt from which it was suspended. On being struck, Saldivar threw up his hands, staggered (dio vueltas-spun around helplessly) and without saying a word, went away in the direction of his sister’s house, which stood about 200 yards (100 brazas) away, and about 100 feet up the side of a hill. He died as he reached the door of the house, and was buried some two or three days later. The trial court found the defendant guilty of the crime of homicide (homicidio), marked with the extenuating circumstances, defined in subsections 3 and 7 of article 9 of the Penal Code, in that the defendant “had no intention of committing so grave an injury as that which he inflicted,” and that he struck the blow “under such powerful excitement as would naturally produce entire loss of reason and self-control.” Sentence of six years and one day of prision mayor was imposed, and from this sentence defendant appealed to this court. Counsel for the appellant, relying mainly on appellant’s claim that he did not strike Saldivar, and that he merely pushed him lightly with the back of his open hand, and relying also on the lack of satisfactory proof of the existence of lesions or external marks of violence on the body of the deceased, contend: first, that the evidence fails to sustain a finding that the deceased came to his death as a result of injuries inflicted by the defendant; and, second, that even if it be a fact that the defendant, in laying his hand upon the deceased, contributed to his death, nevertheless, since the defendant had a perfect right to eject the deceased from the mining property, he can not be held criminally liable for unintentional injuries inflicted in the lawful exercise of this right. Two witnesses, Dagapdap and Yotiga, who were standing close by at the time, swore positively that the blow was delivered with the closed fist, from the shoulder (de dentro para fuera), and that it was a hard blow; Dagapdap testifying that, “Al pegar el puñetazo, Simeon dio vueltas, y despues se marcho” (when the blow was struck, Simeon staggered and afterwards went away); and Yotiga that “despuies de dar el golpe se retrocedio y levanto los brazos” (after the blow was struck, he backed away and threw up his arms). The testimony of these witnesses is clear, positive, and definite and is wholly uncontradicted, except for the improbable story told by the accused in his own behalf, when he testified that seeing Saldivar standing outside his tent, he told him twice to go away and then stepped up to him and pushed him lightly with the back of his hand, which came in contact with the handle of Saldivar’s bolo, but not with sufficient force to push him back or do him any injury. If it had been necessary to use force to compel Saldivar to leave the place, it is at least highly improbable that the accused approaching him from the front would have lightly placed the back of his open right hand on Saldivar’s left side, without attempting to seize him, or to compel him to give ground. Pedro Leocampo, the only other witness called at the trial who appears to have been present when the ihcident occurred, corroborated the testimony of the witnesses Dagapdap and Yotiga as to all that occurred prior to the actual infliction of the blow, which he did not see. He testified that at the time when the accused, standing in his tent, ordered the deceased to leave, he, the witness, was eating his breakfast, with his back to the accused and the deceased; that hearing the order, he turned his head and saw the accused start toward the deceased with his arm outstretched, but that at that moment he turned away and did not see the accused actually come up to, strike or touch the deceased; that when he saw the accused approaching the deceased, the accused did not have his fist clenched, but that he could not say whether the blow was struck with the open hand or the closed fist, because at the moment when it is said the accused came up to and touched or struck the deceased, the witness’s head was so turned that he could not and did not see what took place. No evidence was introduced at the trial which in any wise tends to put in doubt the truth of the testimony of these witnesses as to the fact that they were present at the time when and the place where the incident occurred; and of this fact we are satisfied that there can be no reasonable doubt, although, as frequently happens when ignorant witnesses are testifying in the courts in these Islands, their evidence is conflicting as to the precise hour by the clock when it took place. Some attempt is made to discredit the testimony of Yotiga, because it appears from the record that in answer to certain questions on his examination-in-chief, he stated that when the blow was struck he was some hundred brazas (200 yards) away. It developed, however, on examination by the trial judge, that this answer was given under the impression that the question asked was the distance from the mine to the house of the sister of the deceased, as to which considerable testimony was taken; and it is very clear from all the testimony that both these witnesses were standing within a few yards of the defendant when he struck the blow. The testimony of Dagapdap is also criticised because, in answer to the opening questions on the examination-in-chief, he spoke of the blow inflicted as a bofetada (a slap with the open hand on the cheek), which, later on in his testimony, he changed to the word puñetazo (a blow with the fist), as a result, it is intimated, of suggestive questions by counsel for the prosecution. We do not think this criticism well founded, or that the language of the witness on which it rests sustains the inference sought to be drawn therefrom. In the first place, it must not be forgotten that the witness was manifestly an ignorant man, unskilled in the use of words, and testifying in a remote province in a native dialect; and that his testimony was interpreted into the Spanish of the record by an interpreter who might well have been mistaken in selecting the precise Spanish equivalent of the word or words actually used by the witness, and whose use of Spanish throughout the record does not demonstrate such precision and nicety in the use of words as to justify the laying of too much stress on the phrasing adopted by him in the haste of interpretation in the course of a trial in open court: so that, in our opinion, the detailed description of the manner in which the blow was inflicted, as given by the witness without suggestion or assistance of any kind, is much more decisive as to its nature than the word by which reference to it was made. And in the second place, as appears from the Diccionario Enciclopedico de la Lengua Castellana and the Diccionario de la Lengua por la Academia Española, the word “bofetada,” when used strictly, connotes not merely a blow with the open hand, but such a blow struck on the cheek or side of the face, a meaning which the whole testimony of the witness clearly discloses it was not his intention to give to whatever word he did actually make use of in referring to the act. The definition of the word “bofetada,” as given in the former dictionary, is “a blow which is given on the cheek (mejilla) with the open hand,” and in the latter is “a blow given with the open hand, on the side of the face (carrillo) or cheek (mejilla) of another.” It has also been suggested that the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution is inherently improbable, because, as it is said, if the blow had been struck as described by them, the injured person would necessarily have “doubled up or over and not, as appears from their testimony, thrown up his hands and staggered away. No expert testimony was introduced at the trial upon this point, and while it may, perhaps, be admitted that if the blow took effect in the abdominal region, common experience would justify us in expecting as a result of the blow, that the injured person would “double up or over,” it must not be forgotten that the blow having been delivered over the ribs on the left side, it may as well have taken effect in the region of the heart; in the absence of expert testimony, we do not think that in that event, evidence that the injured person threw up his hands and staggered away is necessarily in conflict with the evidence of the witnesses for the prosecution as to the weight of the blow and the place where it was inflicted. We are satisfied that the evidence of record leaves no room for reasonable doubt that the defendant struck Saldivar a powerful body blow with his closed fist; and that whatever authority the defendant may have had to eject the deceased from the mining property and to use physical force to that end in case of need, the blow thus struck was far in excess of such authority, and was, therefore, unlawful, and can not be excused or justified as an exercise of necessary force in the exercise of a right. The defendant’s own testimony does not indicate that there was any danger to be apprehended from Saldivar, and there is nothing in the record which would indicate that the defendant had reasonable ground to believe that he would offer a violent or even a substantial resistance to an attempt to expel him from the mining property. We are satisfied also that the deceased came to his death as a result of the blow inflicted by the defendant. Two or three days prior to his death he was employed as a laborer in defendant’s mine; his sister testified that on the morning of the day he died, he left her house in apparent good health and went to the mines to look for work; a short time afterwards he received a violent blow on his lower left side, a region of the body where many of the vital organs are located; and immediately thereafter, he started up the short trail leading to his sister’s house, and died as he reached the door. In the absence of evidence of any intervening cause, we think there can be no reasonable doubt that his death resulted from the blow. Counsel for appellant suggest that death may have been the result of some cause unknown, such as a fall, an assault by robbers, or perchance a suicidal frenzy, intervening between the time when the accused was last seen starting up the 200-yard trail to his sister’s house, and the time when, as she testified, he died just as he reached her door, on his way back from the mine; and that the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. But the doubt which must be decided in favor of an accused person in a criminal trial is a reasonable doubt, and not a mere whimsical and fanciful doubt, based upon imagined but wholly improbable possibilities, unsupported by evidence; and while we do not hold that it is absolutely and morally impossible that some other cause could have intervened to bring about the death of Saldivar, we do hold that there can be no reasonable doubt in the mind of a reasonable man that death was in fact brought about by the blow inflicted by the accused, and was not the result of some independent cause intervening during the very short period of time prior to his death, during which he was not under observation by witnesses called at the trial. Counsel for the appellant enlarge on the fact that accepting defendant’s statement that he sent the deceased away from the mines about a quarter past six, it would appear from the testimony of the sister of the deceased that about two hours may have elapsed between that time and the time when he arrived at her house. The sister fixed the time of the arrival of her brother at from 7 to 8 o’clock or possibly a little later; but she appears to have been an ignorant woman who did not know how to read the face of a clock, and it is quite clear that hers was no more than a rough estimate, based on the height of the sun, and the most that can fairly be inferred from the testimony is that the deceased was struck early on the morning in question, and that not long afterwards on the same morning, he died at the door of his sister’s house 200 yards away. But even if it be granted that two hours actually did elapse from the time the deceased left the mines, until he reached his sister’s house, this interval is not long enough to materially weaken the inference that the death resulted from the blow. It is true that no autopsy was had on the body of the deceased, and that a medical officer called in by the accused who saw the body, but who does not appear to have examined it very closely, certified that he found no outward lesions or marks of violence; but this evidence is not sufficient to negative the existence of internal lesions, for the medical authorities inform us that death may and often does result from a blow over or near the heart or in the abdominal region, notwithstanding the fact that the blow leaves no outward mark of violence; and there is evidence in the record of the discovery on the cadaver of two suspicious black spots, one about the place where the blow was struck, and another at or near the umbilicus, though the evidence fails to disclose the precise nature of these discolorations. (Medical Jurisprudence, Taylor, 12th Am. Ed., pp. 310 and 388; Moulin’s Treatise on Surgery, Hamilton, part 2, chap. 1, p. 151; Tratado de Medicina Legal por Legran de Sulle, Vol. II, pp. 206, 207.) It has been suggested that the deceased may have had a weak heart or some other diseased organ, and that but for such physical defect death might not have ensued from the mere force of the blow inflicted by the defendant. There is no evidence to this effect, and on the contrary there is testimony in the record that on the morning before he died he was in apparent good health; and the fact that a few days before, he was able to work in the mines, and that he came to the mines that day in search of work, renders it highly improbable that he was suffering at that time from any grave organic weakness. But however this may have been, it has been frequently and justly decided that where death results as a direct consequence of the use of illegal violence, the mere fact that the diseased or weakened condition of the injured person contributed to his death, does not relieve the illegal aggressor of criminal responsibility. (U. S. vs. Luciano, 2 Phil Rep,, 96; U. S. vs. Montes, 6 Phil. Rep., 443; see also decisions of supreme court of Spain, March 10, 1871, and June 26, 1880.) Counsel for appellant also contend that even if it be granted that in unlawfully exercising force upon the person of the deceased, the appellant caused or contributed to his death, nevertheless he should at most be convicted of homicidio por imprudencia temeraria (homicide as a result of reckless negligence), because, manifestly, the unlawful act was not committed with intent to kill, and because, as counsel contend, the striking of the blow by the appellant was not an act adapted, or likely (idoneo) to inflict a death wound under ordinary circumstances, or reasonably calculated so to do. In support of this contention counsel cite decisions of the supreme court of Spain of November 9, 1885, February 10, 1876, July 5, 1888, and July 12, 1890, and appears to rely especially on the former decision wherein sentence of homicidio por imprudencia temeraria was imposed, the court holding “que es condicion esencial del delito de homicidio, que el hecho material de que resulte sea impulsado por voluntad libre encaminada por acto idoneo a causar la muerte o algun mal fisico que por consecuencia natural la produzca.” In that case, however, it was proven, and the court found that not only did the defendant not intend to kill the deceased but also that he did not intend to do him any physical injury whatever; but in the case at bar the evidence conclusively establishes the voluntary, intentional, and unlawful infliction by the accused of a severe blow on the person of the deceased; and while it is true that the accused does not appear to have intended to take the life of his victim, there can be no doubt that in thus striking the deceased, he intended to do him some injury, at least to the extent of inflicting some degree of physical pain upon him, and he is, therefore, criminally responsible for the natural, even if unexpected results of his act, under the provisions of article 1 of the Penal Code, which prescribes that-
“Any person voluntarily committing a crime or misdemeanor shall incur criminal liability, even though the wrongful act committed be different from that which he had intended to commit.”
In such cases the law in these Islands does not excuse one from liability for the natural consequences of his illegal acts merely because he did not intend to produce such consequences, but it does take that fact into consideration as an extenuating circumstance, as did the trial judge in this case. What has been said sufficiently disposes of all errors assigned by counsel for appellant, except certain alleged errors of procedure in the court below which we do not think it necessary to discuss, because even if it be admitted that such errors were committed, they do not appear to have in any wise prejudiced the substantial rights of the defendant. The judgment of conviction and the sentence imposed by the trial court should be and are hereby affirmed, with the costs of this instance against the appellant. So ordered. Arellano, C. J., Torres, and Mapa, JJ., concur.