This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2001-11-23 |
YNARES-SANTIAGO, J. |
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| Voluntary surrender does not simply mean non-flight. As a matter of law, it matters not if the accused never avoided arrest and never hid or fled. What the law considers as mitigating is the voluntary surrender of the accused before his arrest, showing either acknowledgment of his guilt or an intention to save the authorities from the trouble and expense that his arrest and capture would require.[45] The fact that the accused did not escape or go into hiding after the commission of the murder and in fact accompanied the chief of police to the scene of the crime, without however surrendering to him and admitting complicity in the killing, did not amount to voluntary surrender to the authorities, and this circumstance would not be extenuating in that case.[46] In other words, the accused must actually surrender his own person to the authorities, admitting to complicity in the crime.[47] His conduct after the commission of the crime must indicate a desire on his part to own responsibility for the crime.[48] | |||||