|
|
|
|
|
THE
PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINES,
G.
R. No. 49121
September
29, 1944
-versus-
CONRADO DE MESA Y RACI, Defendant-Appellant. OZAETA,
J :
Appellant pleaded guilty
to the following Information:
and was then and there
sentenced to suffer reclusion perpetua and to indemnify the
heirs
of the deceased in the sum of P2,000.
From that sentence, he appealed to this Court. His attorney de oficio finds no error in the sentence of the trial Court and in effect recommends its confirmation. But as the Solicitor General correctly observes, the crime charged in the body of the Information was not simple murder but the complex crime of murder with assault upon an agent of authority, for which the penalty provided by law is death, an indivisible penalty which cannot be affected by the mitigating circumstance of plea of guilty. The Solicitor General further observes:
We
fully agree with the
Solicitor General. Following the case of U. S. vs. Agcaoili, 31 Phil.,
91, inasmuch as the Information charges a capital offense and there is
possibility that the accused misunderstood its gravity on account of
the
misleading introductory paragraph of the Information wherein the
offense
charged was qualified as simple murder, the trial Court should have
explained
to the accused the true nature of the offense charged and the penalty
involved
in order to avoid all reasonable possibility of the accused's entering
a plea of guilty improvidently or without a clear and precise
understanding
of its meaning and effect, and should have taken the prosecution's
evidence
in support of the allegations of the information in order to be able to
judge correctly the extent of defendant's guilt.
The sentence appealed from is set aside and the case is ordered remanded to the trial Court for new arraignment and trial, with the costs of this instance de oficio. Yulo, C.J., Horrilleno, Paras, and Bocobo, JJ., concur. Moran, J., concurs in the result. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|