Mitigating Circumstances:
These are accompanying or accessory condition, event, or fact that (though 1) The circumstance affects the nature of the crime itself such that the offender
not constituting a justification or excuse of an offense) may be considered by
the courts as reducing the degree of culpability or liability of the accused.
Such circumstances may include family or personal situations, and may help
in attracting a sentence less severe than a typical sentence for similar
offenses.
There are two distinctions: ordinary and privileged.
1) As to the nature of the circumstances, ordinary mitigating circumstance can be
offset by aggravating circumstances, while privileged can never be offset.
2) As to effect, ordinary, if not offset will operate to reduce the penalty to a
minimum period, provided the penalty is a divisible one (negotiable.
Meaning if you hear the words of an officer Man 1, but because of the
offender’s confession and divulging of other vital information, Man 1 with
reduced sentence of up to 5 years with probation). With privileged, it
operates to reduce the penalty by one or two degree, depending on what the
law provides.
Sufficient threat or provocation:
This is mitigating only if the crime was committed on the very person who
made the threat or provocation. The common set-up given in a bar problem
is that of provocation was given by somebody. The person provoked cannot
retaliate against him; thus, the person provoked retaliated on a younger
brother or on an elder father. Although in fact, there is sufficient
provocation, it is not mitigating because the one who gives the provocation is
not the one against whom the crime was committed.
Diminished self control has two criteria:
1) Time has lapsed after the provocation was initially given (ex. A guy was
insulted at this moment, and retaliated back after 24 hours. Giving him
enough time to think of his actions)
2) If there is that time element and at the same time, facts are given indicating
that at the time the offender committed the crime, he is still suffering from
outrage of the threat or provocation done to him, then he will still get the
benefit of this mitigating circumstance.
Vindication of a grave offense, the vindication need not be done by the
person upon whom the grave offense was committed.
Passion or obfuscation – this stands on the premise or proposition that the
offender is suffering from a diminished self-control because of passion or
obfuscation. Passion must be legitimate.
This occurs when an assault on spouse or loved one is prominent, and
because of a jealous outbreak you end up killing the person assaulting your
spouse or loved-one.
Physical defect is another mitigating circumstance. Regardless of any physical
defect a person may still commit a crime as the other parts of the body are
fully functioning and could still commence the crime. Blind, and invalid are
not exempted. Some parts of their body are still working.
Aggravating Circumstances:
Circumstances that increase the seriousness or outrageousness of a given
crime, and that in turn increase the wrongdoer's penalty or punishment.
These are the kinds of aggravating circumstances:
1) Generic or those that can generally apply to all crime;
2) Specific or those that apply only to a particular crime
3) Qualifying or those that change that change the nature of the crime
4) Inherent or those that must of necessity accompany the commission of the
crime
Distinctions between Aggravating and Qualifying circumstances
In aggravating:
1) The circumstance could be offset by a mitigating circumstance,
2) No need to allege this circumstance in the information, as long as it is proven
during trial. If it is proved during trial, the court would consider the same in
imposing the penalty;
3) It is not an ingredient of a crime. It only affects the penalty to be imposed but
the crime remains the same
In qualifying circumstances:
shall be liable for a more serious crime. The circumstance is actually an
ingredient of the crime
2) Being an ingredient of the crime, it cannot be offset by any mitigating
circumstance
3) Qualifying circumstances to be appreciated as such must be specifically
alleged in the complaint or information. If not alleged but proven during the
trial, it will be considered only as generic aggravating circumstance. If this
happens, they are susceptible of being offset by a mitigating circumstance
Aggravating circumstances includes:
1) Taking advantage of public position – this means you use public office as a
medium to commence a crime thinking that you wouldn’t be convicted (well
guess again!)
2) Disrespect due to age, rank and sex –this refers to old, young and for the sex,
it’s the female
3) Abuse of confidence – this is not mere betrayal of trust just because in
example you left your daughter in the trust of a neighbor and your neighbor
rapes your daughter. That is not aggravating, what is aggravating if it was
done to you.
4) Dwelling – this refers to house, regardless if its yours or not!
5) Band – obviously this refers to more than 3 people! It would be bad enough as
it is if one person kills you, but a group? (hello! Common sense!)
6) Uninhabited place – this refers to an area far away from civilization, if this is
you, it would be so unfair as the criminal intends that you won’t be saved,
this is considered as aggravating.
7) Nighttime – you are rendered defenseless at this point in moment in time. You
are sleeping, so killing you while sleeping aggravates the whole thing!
8) Treachery – violation of allegiance or faith. You create this once your
allegiance/loyalty to someone is destroyed.
9) Evident premeditation – it means you planned this all along!!!
10) Breaking and entering is included as well!
11) If you ask the aid of people below 15 years of age, the crime gets aggravated!
(best example CSI: Miami , when an offender asked the aid of Horatio’s son
Kyle who at the time of the offense was 15, ranking him as a juvenile)
12) Craft, disguise or fraud be used in committing a crime.
13) If you create an explosion, poison, stranding a vessel, fire, (all man-made
accidents) these also aggravate the situation. If you use these examples to
hide your crime, then you’re facing jail time for a lifetime.
14) If you accepted a bribe, reward or price in exchange for a commencement of a
crime, well consider these things aggravating.
15) Another aggravating circumstances, you kill someone and being a show-off,
you exposed the person, not only dead, but naked as well and hung him on a
tree, this is ignominy. Kumbaga sa dead, double-dead na ito!
16) If you use your size to get your way and in the end resulting in death, then this
is also considered as aggravating.
17) During natural causes of accidents like earthquake or epidemic and you used it
as a cover for your crime, this is also aggravating. (Best example of this, CSI:
Miami , a robbery took place during a tsunami event. The robbers used a
geologist to cover for them. Talk about good research! But regardless, it’s still
aggravating circumstances)
18) If you commit a crime in the executive palace, regardless of the existence of
the president or not, the grounds are still aggravating. Especially if you shoot
a gun inside a church!
19) If you insult a public officer, that is also an aggravating circumstance.
20) If you also asked the help of armed men, it also aggravates the case.
Recidivism – the offender at the time of the trial shall have been previously
convicted by final judgment of another in the same title of the RPC. Ex. A guy
committed murder last 2 months ago, and now he is being convicted of
homicide.
Reiteration – the offender has been punished for an offense which the law
attaches an equal greater penalty for two or more crimes to which it attaches
a lighter penalty. This time, separate titles are applicable. Ex. Robbery with
rape is a good example.
Habitual delinquency – the offender within a 10-year period from the date of
release or conviction of the crimes: robbery, estafa, murder, the third time.
Alternative Circumstance:
These offenses are against your family (relationship)
 These offenses also cover the part when you’re drunk (so stop drinking!)
It doesn’t care if you’ve finished a college degree or a simple 1st grader.
Everyone has a tendency to become a murderer.
The following are Criminally Liable for Grave felonies:
1) Principals – main doers of the crime
2) Accomplices – the one who helped in the execution
3) Accessories – one may not be there during the crime, but after you help hide
the evidence (obstruction of justice ito)
Criminal Law Book 1 Reviewer
Definition of Terms
Abberatio Ictus – mistake in blow.
What is the legal effect of aberratio ictus?
a. may result in complex crime or two felonies
b. if complex, apply Art. 48 - penalty for the more or most serious
crime in its maximum period.
Absolutory Causes - where the act committed is a crime but for some
reason of public policy and sentiment, there is no penalty imposed.
Exempting and justifying circumstances are absolutory causes.
Related: Full Reference Material in Criminal Law
Accomplices - Persons who do not act as principals but cooperate in
the execution of the offense by previous and simultaneous acts,
which are not indispensable to the commission of the crime. They act as
mere instruments that perform acts not essential to the perpetration
of the offense.
Act – an overt or external act. Any bodily movement tending to produce
some effect in the external world.
Actus Me Invito Factus Non Est Meus Actus – Any act done by me against
my will is not my act.
Agent - subordinate public officer charged w/ the maintenance of public
order and protection and security of life and property.
Aggravating Circumstances - Those which, if attendant in the commission
of the crime, serve to have the penalty imposed in its maximum period
provided by law for the offense or those that change the nature of
the crime.
Generic - those which apply to all crimes.
Specific - those which apply only to specific crimes.
Qualifying - those that change the nature of the crime.
Inherent - which of necessity accompany the commission of the crime,
therefore not considered in increasing the penalty to be
imposed.
Special - those which arise under special conditions to increase
the penalty of the offense and cannot be offset by
mitigating circumstances.
Alternative Circumstances – Those which must be taken into consideration
as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of
the crime and the other conditions attending its commission.
Amnesty – is an act of the sovereign power granting oblivion or general
pardon. It wipes all traces and vestiges of the crime but does not
extinguish civil liability.
Astucia – (Craft) involved the use of intellectual trickery or cunning
on the part of the accused. A chicanery resorted to by the accused to
aid in the execution of his criminal design. It is employed as a
scheme in the execution of the crime.
Bill Of Attainder – A legislative act which inflicts punishment
without trial.
Characteristics of Criminal Law
1. General
2. Territorial
3. Prospective
Circumstances That Affect Criminal Liability
1. Justifying circumstances
2. Exempting circumstances
3. Mitigating circumstances
4. Aggravating circumstances
5. Alternative circumstances
Commutation – change in the decision of the court by the chief regarding
the degree of the penalty by decreasing the length of the imprisonment
or fine.
Consummated Felonies - when all the elements necessary for its execution
and accomplishment are present.
Continued Crime – refers to a single crime consisting of a series of
acts but all arising from one criminal resolution. Although there is
a series of acts, there is only one crime committed, so only one
penalty shall be imposed.
Crime – acts and omissions punishable by any law.
Criminal law - A branch of municipal law which defines crimes, treats
of their nature and provides for their punishment.
The Following are not subject to the operation of Philippine
Criminal Law
1. Sovereigns and other heads of state
2. Charges d'affaires
3. Ambassadors
4. Ministers plenipotentiary
5. Ministers resident
Cruelty – there is cruelty when the culprit enjoys and delights in
making his victim suffer slowly and gradually, causing unnecessary
physical pain in the consummation of the criminal act.
Degree – one whole penalty, one entire penalty or one unit of the
penalties enumerated in the graduated scales provided for in Art. 71
Despoblado – (Uninhabited Place) one where there are no houses at all,
a place at a considerable distance from town, where the houses are
scattered at a great distance from each other.
Discernment - mental capacity to fully appreciate he consequences of
the unlawful act, which is shown by the manner the crime was committed
and conduct of the offender after its commission.
Disfraz (Disguise) – resorting to any device to conceal identity.

Duress - use of violence or physical force.
Dwelling - must be a building or structure exclusively used for rest
and comfort (combination of house and store not included), may be
temporary as in the case of guests in a house or bedspacers. It
includes dependencies, the foot of the staircase and the enclosure
under the house.
El que es causa de la causa es causa del mal causado - Spanish maxim
which means: "He who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the
evil caused.
En Cuadrilla – (Band) whenever there are more than 3 armed malefactors
that shall have acted together in the commission of an offense.
Entrapment - ways and means are resorted to for the purpose of trapping
and capturing the lawbreaker in the execution of his criminal plan.
Error in personae – mistake in identity.
What is the legal effect of error in personae?
a. if same crime results, liable for the same crime
b. if different crime results, apply Art. 49 - penalty for lesser
crime in its maximum period
Exempting Circumstances - grounds for exemption from punishment
because there is wanting in the agent of the crime any of the conditions
which make the act voluntary or negligent.
Ex Post Facto Law - An act which when committed was not a crime,
cannot be made so by statute without violating the constitutional
inhibition as to ex post facto laws.
Felonies – acts and omissions punishable by the Revised Penal Code.
Fence – is a person who commits the act of fencing. A fence who
receives stolen property as above- provided is not an accessory but
a principal in the crime defined in and punished by the Anti-Fencing
Law.
Fencing – is an act, with intent to gain, of buying, selling, receiving,
possessing, keeping, or in any other manner dealing in anything of
value which a person knows or should have known to be derived from the
proceeds of the crime of robbery or theft.
Fraud (fraude) – insidious words or machinations used to induce the
victim to act in a manner which would enable the offender to carry
out his design.
Good conduct allowance during confinement – Deduction for the term of
sentence for good behavior.
Habitual Delinquency or Multi-recidivism – Where a person within a
period of ten years from the date of his release or last conviction
of the crimes of serious or less serious physical injuries, robbery,
theft, estafa or falsification, is found guilty of the said crimes a
third time or oftener. This is an extraordinary aggravating
circumstance.
Habitual Delinquent - A person who, within a period of ten years
from the date of his release or last conviction of the crimes of
serious or less serious physical injuries, robbery, theft, estafa,
or falsification, is found guilty of any said crimes a third time or
oftener.
Ignominy – is a circumstance pertaining to the moral order, which
adds disgrace and obloquy to the material injury caused by the crime.
Imbecile - one while advanced in age has a mental development comparable
to that of children between 2 and 7 years old. He is exempt in all
cases from criminal liability.
Insane - one who acts with complete deprivation of intelligence/reason
or without the least discernment or with total deprivation of freedom
of will. Mere abnormality of the mental faculties will not exclude
imputability.
Instigation - Instigator practically induces the would-be accused into
the commission of the offense and himself becomes a co-principal.
Insuperable Clause - some motive, which has lawfully, morally or
physically prevented a person to do what the law commands.
Irresistible Force - offender uses violence or physical force to
compel another person to commit a crime.
Justifying Circumstances - where the act of a person is in accordance
with law such that said person is deemed not to have violated the law.
Mala In Se - acts or omissions that are inherently evil.
Mala Prohibita - acts made evil because there is a law prohibiting it.
Misdemeanor - a minor infraction of law.
Mistake of Fact - misapprehension of fact on the part of the person
who caused injury to another. He is not criminally liable.
Mitigating Circumstances - those which if present in the commission
of the crime reduces the penalty of the crime but does not erase
criminal liability nor change the nature of the crime.
Motive - it is the moving power which impels one to action for a
definite result.
Nullum Crimen, Nulla Poena Sine Lege – There is no crime when there is
no law punishing it.
Obscuridad – (Night time) that period of darkness beginning at the end
of dusk and ending at dawn.
Offense - a crime punished under special law.
Omission – failure to perform a duty required by law.
Pardon – an act of grace proceeding from the power entrusted with the
execution of laws, which exempts the individual from the punishment
the law inflicts for the crime.
Parole – consists in the suspension of the sentence of a convict after
serving the minimum term of the indeterminate penalty, without granting
pardon, prescribing the terms upon which the sentence shall be
suspended. In case his parole conditions are not observed, a convict
may be returned to the custody and continue to serve his sentence
without deducting the time that elapsed.
Penalty – suffering inflicted by the State for the transgression
of a law.
Period – one of 3 equal portions, min/med/max of a divisible penalty.
A period of a divisible penalty when prescribed by the Code as a
penalty for a felony, is in itself a degree.
Person In Authority - public authority, or person who is directly
vested with jurisdiction and has the power to govern and execute
the laws.
Plurality Of Crimes – consists in the successive execution by the same
individual of different criminal acts upon any of which no
conviction has yet been declared.
Praetor Intentionem - lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong.
What is the legal effect of praeter intentionem?
- a mitigating circumstance (Art. 13, par. 3)
Prescription Of A Crime – is the loss/forfeiture of the right of the
state to prosecute the offender after the lapse of a certain time.
Prescription Of Penalty - means the loss/forfeiture of the right of
government to execute the final sentence after the lapse of a
certain time.
Probation - a disposition under which a defendant after conviction and
sentence is released subject to conditions imposed by the court and to
the supervision of a probation officer.
Pro Reo - whenever a penal law is to be construed or applied and the
law admits of two interpretations, one lenient to the offender and one
strict to the offender, that interpretation which is lenient or favorable
to the offender will be adopted.
Proximate Cause - the cause, which in the natural and continuous
sequence unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the
injury, without which the result would not have occurred.
Quasi-Recidivism – Where a person commits felony before beginning to
serve or while serving sentence on a previous conviction for a
felony. This is a special aggravating circumstance.
RA 75 - This law penalizes acts which would impair the proper
observance by the Republic and its inhabitants of the immunities, rights,
and privileges of duly-accredited foreign diplomatic representatives
in the Philippines.
Rank - The designation or title of distinction used to fix the
relative position of the offended party in reference to others
(There must be a difference in the social condition of the offender
and the offended party).
Recidivism – Where a person, on separate occasions, is convicted of
two offenses embraced in the same title in the RPC. This is a
generic aggravating circumstance.
Recidivist – 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.
Reiteracion or Habituality – Where the offender has been previously
punished for an offense to which the law attaches an equal or greater
penalty or for two crimes to which it attaches a lighter penalty.
This is a generic aggravating circumstance.
Requisites of Dolo or Malice
1. Freedom
2. Intelligence
3. Intent
Requisites of Culpa
1. Freedom
2. Intelligence
3. Negligence, Imprudence, Lack of Foresight, Lack of Skill
Negligence - it indicates a deficiency of perception; failure to pay
proper attention and to use diligence in foreseeing the injury or
damage impending to be caused; usually involves lack of foresight.
Imprudence - it indicates a deficiency of action; failure to take the
necessary precaution to avoid injury to person or damage to property;
usually involves lack of skill.
Rules on jurisdiction over private or merchant vessels while in the
territory of another country
1. French Rule
2. English Rule
Stand Ground When in The Right - the law does not require a person
to retreat when his assailant is rapidly advancing upon him with a
deadly weapon.
Stages In The Execution Of A Crime
1. Attempted Stage - a stage in the execution of a crime where the offender
commences commission of a felony directly by over acts, and does
NOT perform all acts of execution which should produce the felony
by reason of some cause or accident other his spontaneous desistance.
2. Frustrated Stage - a stage in the execution of a crime where the offender
performs all the acts of execution which would produce the felony
as a consequence but which, nevertheless, do not produce it due to
some cause independent of the will of the perpetrator.
3. Consummated Stage - a stage in the execution of a crime where all
the elements necessary for its execution and accomplishment
are present.
Treachery – when the offender commits any of the crimes against the
person, employing means, methods or forms in the execution thereof
which tend directly and specially to insure its execution without
risk to himself arising from the defense which the offended party
might make.
Uncontrollable Fear - offender employs intimidation or threat in
compelling another to commit a crime.
Unlawful Entry - when an entrance is effected by a way not intended
for the purpose.
Youthful offender – over 9 but under 18 at time of the commission
of the offense.