This case has been cited 4 times or more.
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2011-06-15 |
VILLARAMA, JR., J. |
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| This Court, of course, is not unaware of its rulings that the matter of presentation of prosecution witnesses is not for the accused or, except in a limited sense, for the trial court to dictate. Discretion belongs to the city or provincial prosecutor as to how the prosecution should present its case.[25] However, in this case, the non-presentation of the informant as witness weakens the prosecution's evidence since he was the only one who had knowledge of the act which manifested petitioner's intent to use a counterfeit bill. The prosecution had every opportunity to present Francis dela Cruz as its witness, if in fact such person existed, but it did not present him. Hence, the trial court did not have before it evidence of an essential element of the crime. The twenty-three (23) pieces of counterfeit bills allegedly seized on petitioner is not sufficient to show intent, which is a state of mind, for there must be an overt act to manifest such intent. | |||||
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2010-06-29 |
PEREZ, J. |
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| In arriving at the appealed decision, both the trial court and the appellate court accorded to the testimony of the police officers the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty and noted the absence of malice, ill-will, or ill-motive on their part to trump up charges against accused-appellants. As held in People v. Sariol,[16] accused-appellants have not shown that the prosecution witnesses were motivated by any improper motive other than that of accomplishing their mission. | |||||
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2007-04-24 |
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J. |
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| [T]he representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense a servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. Having been vested by law with the control of the prosecution of criminal cases, the public prosecutor, in the exercise of his functions, has the power and discretion to: (a) determine whether a prima facie case exists;[5] (b) decide which of the conflicting testimonies should be believed free from the interference or control of the offended party;[6] and (c) subject only to the right against self-incrimination, determine which witnesses to present in court.[7] Given his discretionary powers, a public prosecutor cannot be compelled to file an Information where he is not convinced that the evidence before him would warrant the filing of an action in court. For while he is bound by his oath of office to prosecute persons who, according to complainant's evidence, are shown to be guilty of a crime, he is likewise duty-bound to protect innocent persons from groundless, false, or malicious prosecution.[8] | |||||
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2007-03-09 |
CARPIO MORALES, J. |
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| If petitioner believed that there were witnesses who could have exculpated him, he could have called for them, even by compulsory process,[40] but he did not. | |||||