My frustrations with SCRA guys and Rex

The SCRA guys are professors who cite only the SCRA number after the names of the parties to the case instead of the G.R. number in the cases they list in their syllabus. Another group of SCRA guys are the law book authors who do the same in their citations.

When I first went to law school ages ago - when Constitutional Law meant the Marcos constitution - the main source of jurisprudence would be the SCRA.

Since I went to a non-"Ivy League" law school it meant there were, at most, only one copy for each volume of SCRA. And you can imagine the queue for that one volume in order to hand-copy the assigned reading. Or another queue to have it xeroxed at the lone copier in the law school.

When I went back to law school - this time at an almost-"Ivy League" school - Lawphil and ChanRobles were the new game in town for sourcing jurisprudence. The virtual library of the Supreme Court is also a good source but its database is sparse. The new game is game changing indeed. 

One caveat, though, about Lawphil and ChanRobles: their copies of jurisprudence are riddled with typos in almost the same places which make one think that they have outsourced their transcription from the same people. Or their source simply OCRed their printed cases as can be judged by the kinds of typos usually resulting from OCR softwares.

Of course, if you miss the Same, same format of the SCRA you can always go to the library because nowadays the queue is not there anymore. It seems everyone would rather go to Lawphil or ChanRobles while keeping tab with friends via FB.

If the professor only cites the SCRA number and the names of the parties to the lawsuit are commonplace, you're in trouble. You'll end up bringing and reporting in class the wrong case. 

A major source of frustration for me is when the book I am reading at home cites only the SCRA. My reading flow is interrupted when I can't get back immediately to the book because of the time googling the jurisprudence. 

Now I can understand if Justice Isagani Cruz in his  fine books  refers only to SCRA in most of his citations because his publisher is also the publisher of the SCRA. But I am disappointed when books published by Rex also in many places only cite the SCRA. 

Pp vs Lawas: a metamorphosis

In my last post I mentioned in passing the problem  of referring to an unreported SC decision.

Such is the case of People vs Lawas which is listed down as G.R. Nos. L-7618-7620 and supposedly to be found in 97 Phil. 975 but which is nowhere to be found in Lawphil or in Chan Robles.

The earliest citation available on the internet would be Pp vs Remollino, GR No. L-14008 which was decided by Justice Paredes on Sept. 30, 1960. The citation does not mention any personalities:

In Pp vs Caldito, GR 78432-33, Feb. 9, 1990 the characters involved in the case emerged:

In Pp vs Palomar, GR 108183-85, Aug 21, 1997, Justice Panganiban provided additional identification of the Home Guards:

But in Pp vs Elarcosa, GR No. 186539, June 29, 2010 even Justice Velasco seemed to be confused by the personalities:

Such is the problem with unreported decisions.

Boado vs SC: conspiracy or no

On page 262 of Notes and Cases on the Revised Penal Code, 2012 Ed. by Leonor Boado, we find the following passage:

The author was discussing an example of separate acts that constitute a complex crime. Unfortunately she chose the case of Lawas, 97 Phil. 975. Lawas is a tough case to follow as there is no complete text available. It is only mentioned as unreported yet many SC decisions advert to it and a few problem may have resulted which will be a subject of a future post.

I think Boado quoted the above passage from Pp. vs Caldito, G.R. 78432-33. What's interesting is that she ended parenthetically by saying that it should have been a conspiracy. But the SC in Pp. vs Hon. Pineda, GR L-26222  said it was not:

Note: A typo in the above passage is courtesy of Lawphil.

Fell while lying

From Pp. vs Hon. Pineda:

Either Mendoza was sleep-walking or sleeping on his feet when hit. Or he was lying on the edge of a bed when he fell dead.

Hats off to Prof. Joan Largo

I missed a lot when I missed the first professorial lecture of Prof. Joan Largo given last March 6, 2012. At least that's what I gather from former Chief Justice Panganiban who was gushing about it here.

When I went back to law school in 2010 I already had passed Constitutional Law I. But that was yet the 1973 Constitution. So I decided to refresh myself on the subject. That's how I became a student of Ms Joan.

She was firm but not known for being a terror professor. But I could sense the tenseness of my classmates when they talked of terror professors in the other sections. So one day during class I asked Prof. Joan, since she was an administrator being then the Asst. Dean,  if it was the policy of the school to terrorize students so only the cream of the crop would rise to the top and make it to the fourth year. I think she managed a smile and said that, no, it was not the policy. But neither did they discourage professors who do so. So there.

Yet despite being not a terror professor, the cases she assigned in terms of numbers and magnitude were such that going to bed earlier than 12 MN was a rarity for my classmates and me during that semester.

But the final words of Prof. Joan in her first professorial lecture (get the text here) will mean that it'd be a lucky day if her present students can sleep by 1 AM. :-)

Anyway, congrats Ma'am Joan. Cheer her on, Prof. Daryl. And good luck to her students.

Reyes vs Regalado, GR No. 74433

What is the liability, applying Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code,  of a person who shot and killed the paramour of his wife but also injured third persons as in the case of People vs. Abarca, GR 74433, Sept. 14, 1987?

Reyes, in his textbook The Revised Penal Code, Book Two,  says he is not liable for the injury of third persons:

But Regalado, in Criminal Law Conspectus,  thinks otherwise:

So who is right? Here's the SC ruling:

Did Reyes misread the ruling or was he expressing a dissenting opinion which he usually does in many parts of his book?

Beyond cavil of doubt

In my post last week (see here) I mentioned how I liked the use by Justice Callejo of the word irrefragably  in declaring that the crime at hand was murder, not kidnapping, but only for him to trip over the wrong Article.

We know that irrefragable means indisputable or beyond doubt. Two paragraphs after using that word, Justice Callejo used a phrase that made me do a double take.

There is  "beyond reasonable doubt",  or just "beyond cavil". But "beyond cavil of doubt" seems stilted. To cavil is to quibble which would mean you are not sure; you are in doubt.

Checking the Lawphil website  shows several decisions using the phrase. The earliest seems to be by Justice Barredo in Orellano vs. Alvestir, G.R. No. L-22412 April 29, 1977. 

Is this phrase just another Filipino legalese like the term "price certain" which I discussed in an earlier post (see here)?

I googled the US Supreme decisions in the Chan Robles website for any usage of the phrase:

Beyond cavil and doubt are not used in one phrase together in US jurisprudence. 

Further googling, however, turns out that the phrase is also an Indian legalese:

This is quite perplexing because I thought our SC is more oriented towards US jurisprudence.

Poetic justice: when murder rhymes with detention

Page 582, The Revised Penal Code, Book Two, 2008 Edition, by Reyes:

I like the word irrefragably as used by the ponente, Justice Callejo, but an alarm bell went off when he cited Article 268. My first thought was that it was a typo by Reyes because kidnapping is Art. 267 while Art. 268 is about illegal detention. Checking the decision at  Philippine Report Online revealed that Reyes correctly copied the article.

But working back a few paragraphs shows that in fact the ponente was talking about Article 267, and not Article 268:

Somehow it is a case of poetic license: Article 268 rhymes with Article 248. Does that make Justice Callejo a poet Justice?

Update, March 4, 2013: Justice Regalado in his book Criminal Law Conspectus explained that in fact Article 268 is also about kidnapping but the epigraph made it confusing. So there, I caught myself.

When matter matters too much

Many legal phrases and terms are unique to the Philippines. In my previous post, I discussed why we use price certain instead of the straightforward certain price.

Here's another unique Philippine legal terminology from the Revised Penal Code. Instead of the codal, here's a scanned portion from Justice Regalado's Criminal Law Conspectus, page 463:

A reader will immediately sense something awkward with the phrase material matter. It conjures repeat again for the second twice.

Justice Regalado, on page 467, quotes the way the Supreme Court defines the phrase:

Black's Law dictionary has entries for material and  matter but none for the two words together. Black defines material and matter as:

Material and matter come from the same etymological origin. From the Online Etymology Dictionary we have these entries:

It seems that material matter is simply exaggerated emphasis. Matter, in regard to Article 183, is enough in itself without material describing it.

I could hear now Professor Felipe Belciña, had I brought this up in class, saying: "Wait until you get to the Supreme Court!".  I think I owe one to Prof. Belciña so here goes: "Your compendium in Criminal law II is good." Altho I am a non-theist, I say may you rest in peace.

For the lack of space avenditio was born

In my previous post  I talked how Paras omitted the negative prefix causing me a lot of headache in the process. This time Paras deleted the space between two words giving birth to an unknown term.

From page 1 of the Civil Code of the Philippines Annotated, Vol. V, 2013 Edition:

After defining sale, he delved into the history of the term and wrote that sale came from the Latin word avenditio. In another post  I discussed the difficulties of the claim of  Paras about the French and Spanish usage of the words a venta. In this post let's see how avenditio came into being.

Google Translate says that sale in Latin is venditionem or venditio. Not avenditionem nor avenditio.

Duhaime's Legal Dictionary translates venditio as a sale. Notice the space between the article and the noun.
Here's how Duhaime defines venditio:

A term of ancient Roman law but still reflected in the civil law and French language for which the verb for sale is vendre and the noun vente. Even in English, a seller is known alternatively as a vendor. In Latin, a male seller is a venditor and a female, venditrix.

So how did Paras come up with avenditio? This passage from the book A Text-Book of Roman Law: From Augustus to Justinian  By W. W. Buckland may explain:

Or this footnote from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4,  By Edward Gibbon:

The old editions of Paras contain the same word. I'd like to believe that this is just proofreading oversight. But who knows?