People Vs Opero Case Digest

 

Criminal Law 2; RPC ART ROBBERY WITH HOMICIDE People vs Opero 105 SCRA 40 [GR No. L-48796]  June 11, 1981 Per Curiam:

FACTS: A security guard, while accompanying a loitering little girl in the Hotel corridor to her room, smell foul odor emanating from the room. When they entered, they saw a dead body of the victim and a baby on a crib. They reported the incident to the police who then contacted the husband of the victim who is in Cebu. The husband upon return, made an inventory and found out that they have been robbed. Opero and 3 other suspects were arrested, one in Manila and the other 3 in Samar. Opero admitted the crime, described in detail how it happened and identied his co-conspirators. co-conspirators. He narrated that he and another suspect assaulted the victim, tied her hands and feet, stabbed her and stued her mouth with a piece of pandesal. The cause of death was due to “asphyxiation by suocation” because of the pandesal. Only Opero appealed. His defense was that they had no intention to kill the victim. Their plan was only to rob her so he should only be liable for robbery. ISSUE: Whether or not Opero’s contention that he is only liable for robbery has merit RULING: No. The contention has no merit. The court repeatedly held that when direct and intimate connection exists between the robbery and the killing, regardless of which of the two precedes the other, or whether they are committed at the same time, the crime committed is the special complex crime of robbery with homicide.  If the circumstances circumstances would indicate no intention to kill, as in the instant case were evidently, the intention is to prevent the deceased from making an outcry, and so a “pandesal” was stued into her mouth, the mitigating circumstance circumstanc e of not having intended to commit so grave a wrong may be appreciated(Art appreciated( Art 13 (3)). ADDITIONAL: Article 49 par 1 that provides for penalty imposed where the crime committed is dierent from that intended does not apply in this case. The foregoing provision has been applied only to cases when the crime committed befalls a dierent person from the one intended to be the victim. In the instant case, the intended victim, not any other person, was the one killed, as a result of an intention to rob, as in fact appellant and his co-accused, did rob the deceased.