rendered some service to humanity or justice, or entered cafes, taverns, inns and other public houses while the same were open.
(Art. 280, par. 3)
Absolutory cause has the effect of an exempting circumstance and they are predicated on lack of voluntariness like instigation. Instigation is associated with criminal intent. Do not consider culpa in connection with instigation. If the crime is culpable, do not talk of instigation. In instigation, the crime is committed with dolo. It is confused with entrapment.
Entrapment is not an absolutory cause. Entrapment does not exempt the offender or mitigate his criminal liability. But instigation absolves the offender from criminal liability because in instigation, the offender simply acts as a tool of the law enforcers and, therefore, he is acting without criminal intent because without the instigation, he would not have done the criminal act which he did upon instigation of the law enforcers.
Difference between instigation and entrapment
In instigation, the criminal plan or design exists in the mind of the law enforcer
with whom the person instigated cooperated so it is said that the person instigated is acting only as a mere instrument or tool of the law enforcer in the performance of his duties.
On the other hand, in entrapment, a criminal design is already in the mind of the person entrapped. It did not emanate from the mind of the law enforcer entrapping him. Entrapment involves only ways and means which are laid down or resorted to facilitate the apprehension of the culprit.
Entrapment is not an absolutory cause because in entrapment, the offender is already committing a crime.
The element which makes instigation an absolutory cause is the lack of criminal intent as an element of voluntariness.
If the instigator is a law enforcer, the person instigated cannot be criminally
liable, because it is the law enforcer who planted that criminal mind in him to commit the crime, without which he would not have been a criminal. If the
instigator is not a law enforcer, both will be criminally liable, you cannot have a case of instigation. In instigation, the private citizen only cooperates with
the law enforcer to a point when the private citizen upon instigation of the law enforcer incriminates himself. It would be contrary to public policy to prosecute a citizen who only cooperated with the law enforcer. The private citizen believes that he is a law enforcer and that is why when the law enforcer tells him, he believes that it is a civil duty to cooperate.
If the person instigated does not know that the person is instigating him is a law enforcer or he knows him to be not a law enforcer, this is not a case of instigation. This is a case of inducement, both will be criminally liable.
In entrapment, the person entrapped should not know that the person trying to entrap him was a law enforcer. The idea is incompatible with each other
because in entrapment, the person entrapped is actually committing a crime. The officer who entrapped him only lays down ways and means to have evidence of the commission of the crime, but even without those ways and means, the person entrapped is actually engaged in a violation of the law.
Instigation absolves the person instigated from criminal liability. This is based
on the rule that a person cannot be a criminal if his mind is not criminal. On the other hand, entrapment is not an absolutory cause. It is not even
mitigating.
In case of somnambulism or one who acts while sleeping, the person involved is definitely acting without freedom and without sufficient intelligence, because he is asleep. He is moving like a robot, unaware of what he is doing. So the element of voluntariness which is necessary in dolo and culpa is not present. Somnambulism is an absolutory cause. If element of voluntariness is absent, there is no criminal liability, although there is civil liability, and if the circumstance is not among those enumerated in Article 12, refer to the circumstance as an absolutory cause.
Mistake of fact is an absolutory cause. The offender is acting without criminal intent. So in mistake of fact, it is necessary that had the facts been true as the accused believed them to be, this act is justified. If not, there is criminal liability, because there is no mistake of fact anymore. The offender must believe he is performing a lawful act.
Extenuating circumstances
The effect of this is to mitigate the criminal liability of the offender. In other
words, this has the same effect as mitigating circumstances, only you do not call it mitigating because this is not found in Article 13.
The concealment of honor by mother in the crime of infanticide is an extenuating circumstance but not in the case of parricide when the age of the victim is three days old and above.
In the crime of adultery on the part of a married woman abandoned by her husband. Abandonment by the husband does not justify the act of the woman.
It only extenuates or reduces criminal liability. When the effect of the
circumstance is to lower the penalty there is an extenuating circumstance.
Distinctions between justifying circumstances and exempting circumstances
In justifying circumstances –
(1) The circumstance affects the act, not the actor;
(2) The act complained of is considered to have been done within the bounds of law; hence, it is legitimate and lawful in the eyes of the law; (3) Since the act is considered lawful, there is no crime, and because there
is no crime, there is no criminal;
(4) Since there is no crime or criminal, there is no criminal liability as well as civil liability.
In exempting circumstances –
(1) The circumstances affect the actor, not the act;
(2) The act complained of is actually wrongful, but the actor acted without voluntariness. He is a mere tool or instrument of the crime;
(3) Since the act complained of is actually wrongful, there is a crime. But because the actor acted without voluntariness, there is absence of dolo or culpa. There is no criminal;
(4) Since there is a crime committed but there is no criminal, there is civil liability for the wrong done. But there is no criminal liability. However, in paragraphs 4 and 7 of Article 12, there is neither criminal nor civil liability.
When you apply for justifying or exempting circumstances, it is confession and avoidance and burden of proof shifts to the accused and he can no longer rely on weakness of prosecution’s evidence
Art. 11: Justifying Circumstances - those wherein the acts of the actor are in accordance with law, hence, he is justified. There is no criminal and civil liability because there is no crime.
A. Reason for lawfulness of self-defense: because it would be impossible for the State to protect all its citizens. Also a person cannot just give up his rights without any resistance being offered.
Since the justifying circumstances are in the nature of defensive acts, there must be always unlawful aggression. The reasonableness of the means employed depends on the gravity of the aggression. If the unlawful aggressor was killed, this can only be justified if it was done to save the life of the person defending or the person being defended. The equation is “life was taken to
save life.”
B. Rights included in self-defense: