Crime and
Exoneration
True crime trials that ended up in
respondents’ eventual acquittal
based on the jurisprudential files
of the Philippine Judiciary
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Ebook Volume 1:
The First Ternary Collection
(Crimes They Weren’t Found Guilty of)
By
N. Madera Aguilar
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Crime and Exoneration
Published by the Author
In E-Book Form
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011
By N. Madera Aguilar
All Rights Reserved
By the Author
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One
‘Where’s my Baby?’
In November, 1987, Joan, a mother, brought her sick seven-month old baby Isabel for treatment to a medical and maternity clinic located in a northern metropolitan city of the Greater Manila Area which was owned and operated by a physician couple. Isabel was diagnosed to be suffering from bronchitis and diarrhea, hence, Joan was given the appropriate medical advice, including the confinement of the child at the clinic for fast recovery.
Three days later, Isabel was cured and her discharge from the clinic was advisable but Joan was not around to take her. After a week, Joan arrived but she did not have the money to fully defray the hospital bill amounting to three hundred pesos. She confided to the wife-doctor that no one could baby-sit for her child since she was mostly away from home working. She decided to avail of the nursery services of the clinic at the daily rate of fifty pesos and opted to leave her daughter in the care of the nursery personnel. The child was transferred from the ward to the nursery.
As days went by, Joan’s hospital bills rose up and accumulated. The wife-doctor suggested to her that it was more economical to take a baby-sitter with monthly salary of four hundred pesos rather than bear the daily expense at the nursery which was a fee of fifty pesos. Joan agreed and a nanny was hired. Isabel was again moved from the nursery to the clinic extension which was at the same time a residence for the hospital staff.
Joan had not been heard of from that time onwards. She neither paid a visit to her child nor called to inquire about the latter and reveal her own whereabouts. Her estranged husband visited the clinic once but did not take the child. Getting in touch with the complainant proved futile as she had not given her address or telephone number where she can be contacted. This led to the doctor’s giving notice to the village chief of the child’s abandonment. Meanwhile, the hospital staff took care of Isabel.
Two years after Isabel’s abandonment by her mother, a dentist at the clinic, suggested during a hospital staff conference that the baby should be entrusted to a guardian who could give the child the love and affection, personal attention and caring the child urgently needed as she was thin and sickly. The suggestion was found to be well-taken. The child was thus given to the dentist’s aunt.
Five years after she abandoned the baby, Joan came back in 1992 to claim her daughter. Despite her pleas, however, she failed to have Isabel back in her custody. Consequently, Joan lodged a petition for habeas corpus against the physicians with a branch of the National Capital Regional Trial Court. But her petition failed to achieve due course as the same was summarily dismissed without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction as the same was wrongly filed in another city.
Joan was thus prompted to institute a criminal action against the husband-and-wife physicians who were charged with the crime of kidnapping and failure to return a minor in another branch of the Regional Trial Court in Metro Manila, Philippines, the Information alleging that in the month of April 1989, they, being then the owners, proprietors, managers and administrators of a clinic, had the custody of a minor and they conspired together as well as mutually helped one another—with deliberate intent—to deprive the parents of the child of her custody. As averred, they willfully, unlawfully and feloniously fail to restore the custody of said child to her parents by giving such custody of the minor to another person without the knowledge and consent of the parents.
When
arrested and arraigned, both accused pleaded not guilty to the
accusation. Trial ensued and, thereafter, judgment was rendered
finding them guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of
kidnapping a minor and failure to return the same as defined and
penalized by Article 270 of the Revised Penal Code. They were
sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion
perpetua. They
were further ordered to pay the private complainant the sum
of P100,000.00
by way of moral damages caused by anxiety, by her being emotionally
drained, plus the fact that up to the date of the rendition of the
decision, she still could not determine the whereabouts of her child.
The accused appealed their conviction.
Aside from the criminal case, Joan also filed an administrative case for dishonorable conduct against the wife-doctor before the Board of Medicine of the Professional Regulation Commission but her complaint was eventually dismissed for failure to prosecute.
Subsequently, Joan filed another petition for habeas corpus—this time with the proper branch of the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City against the alleged guardians of her daughter. At the start of the following year, the trial court rendered a decision granting the petition and ordering the guardians to immediately deliver the child named Kristine to Joan, the court having found the former to be the latter’s child. On appeal to the Court of Appeals, however, the lower court’s decision was reversed on the ground that the guardians were not unlawfully withholding from Joan the rightful custody of Kristine as it was found that the latter and Joan’s daughter were not one and the same person.
In the Supreme Court, the doctor spouses sought for the taking of a second look and a resolution on the issue of whether or not they could be held guilty of kidnapping and failure to return a minor. They professed their innocence and the Solicitor General agreed. In its Manifestations and Motion in lieu of Appellee’s Brief, the Office of the Solicitor General recommended their acquittal.
The Supreme Court agreed.
In its decision, the High Court, in a related case, affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals reversing the trial court’s ruling that Joan has rightful custody over the child Kristine, the latter not being identical with Joan’s daughter, Isabel. The Supreme Court explained that Joan did not have the right of custody over the minor Kristine because, by the evidence disclosed before the court a quo, the latter was not shown to be her daughter Isabel. The evidence adduced before the trial court did not lead to a conclusion that Isabel is in reality Kristine. In the case, the testimonial and circumstantial proof established the individual and separate existence of Isabel from that of Kristine.
As noted by the Supreme Court in its decision, Joan’s own witness, testified in the lower court that, together with Isabel, there were several babies left in the clinic, hence, she could not be certain whether it was Isabel or another baby they gave to private respondents. Joan’s own evidence showed that, after the confinement of Isabel in the clinic in 1987, she saw her daughter again only in 1989 when she visited the clinic. This corroborated the testimony of petitioner’s own witness that Isabel was physically confined in the clinic from 1987 to 1989 and the declaration tallied with her assertion in her counter-affidavit that Isabel was in the custody of the hospital until April, 1989. When juxtaposed with the unwavering declaration of private respondents that they obtained custody of Kristine in April, 1988 and had her church baptism on the last day of April, 1988, all these would lead to the conclusions that Kristine is not Isabel.
The Supreme Court furthermore significantly noted the observation of the ponente in the Court of Appeals decision when the case was set for hearing on August 30, 1993 primarily for the purpose of observing Joan’s demeanor towards the minor Kristine. Joan arrived at the hearing late, walked inside the courtroom looking for a seat without even stopping at her alleged daughter’s seat. She did not even cast a glance on the child. There was no tearful embrace characterizing the reunion of ‘a loving mother with her missing dear child.’ There were no ‘signs of endearment and affection expected of a mother who had been deprived of the embrace of her little child for many years.’
The conclusion arrived at before the Court of Appeals pointed to the fact that Joan is not the mother of Kristine. And in the Supreme Court, since Joan had not established by evidence her entitlement to the custody of the minor Kristine on account of mistaken identity, a finding was made to the effect that private respondents cannot be said to be unlawfully withholding from Joan the rightful custody over Kristine. The High Court did not even deem it a necessity to inquire into the validity of the mode by which private respondents acquired custodial rights over the minor Kristine.
Under the facts presented before the Supreme Court, the latter held that the accused spouses should be acquitted of the crime charged, there being no reason to hold them liable for failing to return one Kristine, a child not conclusively shown and established to be Joan’s daughter, Isabel.
And even if Kristine and Isabel were to be considered as one and the same person, still, as the Supreme Court held, the criminal case against the accused physicians must fail. Said the High Court:
“Before a conviction for kidnapping and failure to return a minor under Article 270 of the Revised Penal Code can be had, two elements must concur, namely: (a) the offender has been entrusted with the custody of the minor, and (b) the offender deliberately fails to restore said minor to his parents or guardians. The essential element herein is that the offender is entrusted with the custody of the minor but what is actually punishable is not the kidnapping of the minor, as the title of the article seems to indicate, but rather the deliberate failure or refusal of the custodian of the minor to restore the latter to his parents or guardians. Said failure or refusal, however, must not only be deliberate but must also be persistent as to oblige the parents or the guardians of the child to seek the aid of the courts in order to obtain custody. The key word therefore of this element is deliberate and Black’s Law Dictionary defines deliberate as:
Deliberate, adj. Well advised; carefully considered; not sudden or rash; circumspect; slow in determining. Willful rather than merely intentional. Formed, arrived at, or determined upon as a result of careful thought and weighing of considerations, as a deliberate judgment or plan. Carried on coolly and steadily, especially according to a preconceived design; given to weighing facts and arguments with a view to a choice or decision; careful in considering the consequences of a step; slow in action; unhurried; characterized by reflection; dispassionate; not rash. People v. Thomas, 25 Cal. 2d 880, 156 P. 2d 7, 17, 18.