Plurality of Crimes (Concursu de delitos) (1) Consists of the successive execution (2) by the same individual
(3) of different criminal acts
(4) for any of which no conviction has yet been declared.
Philosophy behind plural crimes
Through the concept of plural crimes, several crimes are treated as one. The purpose of this is to allow leniency towards the offender, who, instead of being made to suffer distinct penalties for every resulting crime is made to suffer one penalty only, although it is the penalty for the most serious one and is imposed in its maximum period.
Note: If by complexing the crime, the penalty would turn out to be higher, do not complex anymore.
PLURALITY OF
CRIMES RECIDIVISM
There is no conviction for any of the crimes committed.
There must be conviction by final judgment of the first or prior offense.
A Complex crime is not just a matter of penalty, but of substance under the Revised Penal Code.
Kinds of Plurality of Crimes a. Real or Material Plurality
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(1) There are different crimes in law as well as in the conscience of the offender.
(2) In such cases, the offender shall be punished for each and every offense that he committed.
Illustration:
A stabbed B. Then, A also stabbed C. There are two crimes committed.
b. Formal or Ideal Plurality
(1) There is but one criminal liability in this kind of plurality.
(2) Divided into 3 groups:
(a) Complex Crimes - When the offender commits either of the complex crimes defined in Art. 48 of the Code.
(b) Special Complex Crimes - When the law specifically fixes a single penalty for 2 or more offenses committed.
(c) Continuing and Continued Crimes - A single crime consisting of a series of acts but all arising from one criminal resolution.
1. Complex Crimes
(ASKED 5 TIMES IN BAR EXAMS) Art. 48. Penalty for complex crimes.
When a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies, or when an offense is a necessary means for committing the other, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed, the same to be applied in its maximum period.
Art. 48 requires the commission of at least 2 crimes.
But the two or more GRAVE or LESS GRAVE felonies must be
(1) the result of a single act, or
(2) an offense must be a necessary means for committing the other.
Nature of complex crimes
Although two or more crimes are actually committed, they constitute only one crime, in the eyes of the law; and in the conscience of the offender.
Even in the case where an offense is a necessary means for committing the other, the evil intent of the offender is only one. Hence, there is only one penalty imposed for the commission of a complex crime.
Two kinds of complex crimes (ASKED 4 TIMES IN BAR EXAMS)
a. Compound Crime (Delito Compuesto) A single act results in two or more grave or less grave felonies.
Requisites:
(1) That only a single act is performed by the offender
Single Act Several Acts Throwing a hand
grenade Submachine gun – because of the number of bullets released A single bullet
killing two person Firing of the revolver twice in succession
(2) That the single acts produces:
i. 2 or more grave felonies, or
ii. 1 or more grave and 1 or more less grave felonies, or
iii. 2 or more less grave felonies
Light felonies produced by the same act should be treated and punished as separate offenses or may be absorbed by the grave felony.
Illustration:
When the crime is committed by force or violence, slight physical injuries are absorbed.
So that when an offender performed more than one act, although similar, if they result in separate crimes,
i. there is no complex crime at all,
ii. instead, the offender shall be prosecuted for as many crimes as are committed under separate information.
Compound crimes under Art. 48 is also applicable to crimes through negligence. Thus, a municipal mayor who accidentally discharged his revolver, killing a girl and injuring a boy was found guilty of complex crime of homicide with less serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence. (People v. Castro) Example of a compound crime:
The victim was killed while discharging his duty as barangay captain to protect life and property and enforce law and order in his barrio.
The crime is a complex crime of homicide with assault upon a person in authority.
When in obedience to an order several accused simultaneously shot many persons, without evidence how many each killed, there is only a single offense, there being a single criminal impulse.
b. Complex Crime Proper (Delito Complejo) An offense is a necessary means for committing the other.
In complex crime, when the offender executes various acts, he must have a single purpose.
But: When there are several acts performed, the assumption is that each act is impelled by a distinct Monteverde vs. People (2002): No complex crime
when:
1. Two or more crimes are committed, but not by a single act;
2. Committing one crime is not a necessary means for committing the other (or others)
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criminal impulse, hence each will have a separate penalty.
Requisites:
(1) That at least two offenses are committed (2) That one or some of the offenses must be
necessary to commit the other
(3) That both or all the offenses must be punished under the same statute.
Note: The phrase ―necessary means‖ does not mean
―indispensable means‖
People vs. Comadre (2004):
The single act by appellant of detonating a hand grenade may quantitatively constitute a cluster of several separate and distinct offenses, yet these component criminal offenses should be considered only as a single crime in law on which a single penalty is imposed because the offender was impelled by a ―single criminal impulse‖ which shows his lesser degree of perversity.
No complex crime proper:
(a) Subsequent acts of intercourse, after forcible abduction with rape, are separate acts of rape.
(b) Not complex crime when trespass to dwelling is a direct means to commit a grave offense.
(c) No complex crime, when one offense is committed to conceal the other.
(d) When the offender already had in his possession the funds which he misappropriated, the subsequent falsification of a public or official document involving said offense is a separate offense.
(e) No complex crime where one of the offenses is penalized by a special law.
(f) There is no complex crime of rebellion with murder, arson, robbery, or other common crimes (People v. Hernandez; Enrile v. Salazar).
(g) In case of continuous crimes.
(h) When the other crime is an indispensable element of the other offense.
General rules in complexing crimes:
(a) When two crimes produced by a single act are respectively within the exclusive jurisdiction of two courts of different jurisdiction, the court of higher jurisdiction shall try the complex crime.
(b) The penalty for complex crime is the penalty for the most serious crime, the same to be applied in its maximum period.
(c) When two felonies constituting a complex crime are punishable by imprisonment and fine, respectively, only the penalty of imprisonment should be imposed.
(d) Art. 48 applies only to cases where the Code does not provide a definite specific penalty for a complex crime.
(e) One information should be filed when a complex crime is committed.
(f) When a complex crime is charged and one offense is not proven, the accused can be convicted of the other.
(g) Art. 48 also applies in cases when out of a single act of negligence or imprudence, two or more
grave or less grave felonies resulted, but only the first part is applicable, i.e. compound crime. The second part of Art. 48 does not apply, referring to the complex crime proper because this applies or refers only to a deliberate commission of one offense to commit another offense.
2. Special Complex/Composite crimes
The substance is made up of more than one crime but which in the eyes of the law is only
(1) a single indivisible offense.
(2) all those acts done in pursuance of the crime agreed upon are acts which constitute a single crime.
Special Complex Crimes
(1) Robbery with Homicide (Art. 294 (1)) (2) Robbery with Rape (Art. 294 (2)) (3) Robbery with Arson
(4) Kidnapping with serious physical injuries (Art.
267 (3))
(5) Kidnapping with rape
(6) Rape with Homicide (Art. 335) (7) Arson with homicide
When crimes involved cannot be legally complexed, viz:
(1) Malicious obtention or abusive service of search warrant (Art. 129) with perjury;
(2) Bribery (Art. 210) with infidelity in the custody of prisoners;
(3) Maltreatment of prisoners (Art. 235) with serious physical injuries;
(4) Usurpation of real rights (Art. 312) with serious physical injuries; and
(5) Abandonment of persons in danger (Art. 275) and crimes against minors (Art. 276 to 278) with any other felony.
3. Continued and Continuing Crimes (Delito Continuado)
Continued crime (continuous or continuing) - A single crime, consisting of a series of acts but all arising from one criminal resolution.
Cuello Calon explains the delito continuado in this way: When the actor , there being unity of purpose and of right violated, commits diverse acts, each one of which, although of a delictual character, merely constitutes a partial execution of a single particular delict, such delictual acts is called delito continuado. Example: One who on several occasions steals wheat deposited in a granary. Each abstraction constitutes theft, but instead of imposing on the culprit different penalties for each theft committed, he is punished for only one ―hurto continuado‖ for the total sum or value abstracted.
Continuing offense - A continuous, unlawful act or series of acts set on foot by a single impulse and operated by an unintermittent force, however long a time it may occupy.
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Although there is a series of acts, there is only one crime committed. Hence, only one penalty shall be imposed.
Real or material
plurality Continued Crime There is a series of acts performed by the offender.
Each act performed constitutes a separate crime because each act is generated by a criminal impulse
The different acts constitute only one crime because all of the acts performed arise from one criminal resolution.
People v. De Leon (1926): a thief who took from a yard of a house two game roosters belonging to two different persons was ruled to have committed only one crime of theft, because there is a unity of thought in the criminal purpose of the offender. The accused was animated by a single criminal impulse.
A continued crime is not a complex crime.
The offender here does not perform a single act, but a series of acts, and one offense is not a necessary means for continuing the other.
Hence, the penalty is not to be imposed in its maximum period.
A continued crime is different from a transitory crime (moving crime.) in criminal procedure for purposes of determining venue.
When a transitory crime is committed, the criminal action may be instituted and tried in the court of the municipality, city or province wherein any of the essential ingredients thereof took place.
(ASKED TWICE IN BAR EXAMS)
While Article 48 speaks of a complex crime where a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave offenses, those cases involving a series of acts resulting to two or more grave and less grave felonies, were considered by the Supreme Court as a complex crime when it is shown that the act is the product of one single criminal impulse.
TIP: If confronted with a problem, the Supreme Court has extended this class of complex crime to those cases when the offender performed not a single act but a series of acts as long as it is the product of a single criminal impulse
People v. Garcia (1980):
The accused were convicts who were members of a certain gang and they conspired to kill the other gang.
Some of the accused killed their victims in one place within the same penitentiary, some killed the others in another place within the same penitentiary.
The Supreme Court ruled that all accused should be punished under one information because they acted in conspiracy.
The act of one is the act of all.
Because there were several victims killed and
some were mortally wounded, the accused should be held for the complex crime of multiple homicide with multiple frustrated homicide.
There is a complex crime not only when there is a single act but a series of acts.
It is correct that when the offender acted in conspiracy, this crime is considered as one and prosecuted under one information.
Although in this case, the offenders did not only kill one person but killed different persons, the Supreme Court considered this as complex.
Whenever the Supreme Court concludes that the criminals should be punished only once, because they acted in conspiracy or under the same criminal impulse:
it is necessary to embody these crimes under one single information.
It is necessary to consider them as complex crimes even if the essence of the crime does not fit the definition of Art 48, because there is no other provision in the RPC.
Applying the concept of the ―continued crime‖, the following cases have been treated as constituting one crime only:
i. People v. Tumlos, (1939): The theft of 13 cows belonging to two different persons committed by the accused at the same place and period of time;
ii. People v. Jaranilla, (1974): The theft of six roosters belonging to two different owners from the same coop and at the same period of time;
iii. People v. Sabbun, (1964): The illegal charging of fees for service rendered by a lawyer every time he collected veteran‘s benefits on behalf of a client who agreed that attorney‘s fees shall be paid out of such benefits. The collections of legal fees were impelled by the same motive, that of collecting fees for services rendered, and all acts of collection were made under the same criminal impulse.
The Supreme Court declined to apply the concept in the following cases:
i. People v. Dichupa, (1961): Two estafa cases, one which was committed during the period from January 19 to December, 1955 and the other from January 1956 to July 1956. Said acts were committed on two different occasions;
ii. People v. CIV: Several malversations committed in May, June and July 1936 and falsifications to conceal said offenses committed in August and October, 1936. The malversations and falsifications were not the result of one resolution to embezzle and falsity;
In the THEFT cases:
The trend is to follow the single larceny doctrine:
i. taking of several things,
ii. whether belonging to the same or different owners,
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iii. at the same time and place, constitutes one larceny only.
Abandoned is the doctrine that the government has the discretion to prosecute the accused for one offense or for as many distinct offenses as there are victims.
Note: The concept of delito continuado has been applied to crimes under special laws since in Art. 10, the RPC shall be supplementary to special laws, unless the latter provides the contrary.