This case has been cited 2 times or more.
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2013-12-11 |
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, J. |
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| In order to be appreciated, the circumstance must not merely be premeditation; it must be "evident premeditation."[45] To warrant a finding of evident premeditation, the prosecution must establish the confluence of the following requisites: (a) the time when the offender determined to commit the crime; (b) an act manifestly indicating that the offender clung to his determination; and (c) a sufficient interval of time between the determination and the execution of the crime to allow him to reflect upon the consequences of his act.[46] Evident premeditation, like other circumstances that would qualify a killing as murder, must be established by clear and positive evidence showing the planning and the preparation stages prior to the killing. Without such evidence, mere presumptions and inferences, no matter how logical and probable, will not suffice.[47] | |||||
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2011-07-27 |
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, J. |
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| The Court finds erroneous, however, the trial court's and the Court of Appeals' appreciation of the aggravating circumstance of evident premeditation. For evident premeditation to aggravate a crime, there must be proof, as clear as the evidence of the crime itself, of the following elements: (1) the time when the offender determined to commit the crime; (2) an act manifestly indicating that he clung to his determination; and (3) sufficient lapse of time, between determination and execution, to allow himself to reflect upon the consequences of his act.[58] It is not enough that evident premeditation is suspected or surmised, but criminal intent must be evidenced by notorious outward acts evidencing determination to commit the crime. In order to be considered an aggravation of the offense, the circumstance must not merely be "premeditation"; it must be "evident premeditation."[59] In the case at bar, the evidence of the prosecution failed to establish any of the elements of evident premeditation since the testimonies they presented pertained to the period of the actual commission of the crime and the events that occurred thereafter. The prosecution failed to adduce any evidence that tended to establish the exact moment when the accused-appellant devised a plan to kill Felipe, that the latter clung to his determination to carry out the plan and that a sufficient time had lapsed before he carried out his plan. | |||||