Brothers Eduardo Valdez and Edwin Valdez were police officers accused of killing three persons. They were charged in court for murder. The Informations against them commonly alleged the following “the above-named accused conspiring together, confederating with and mutually helping each other, with intent to kill, qualified with treachery, xxx then and there, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, assault, attack and employ personal violence upon the person of one…”
The trial court convicted them of murder. They were sentenced to reclusion perpetua in all cases. They appealed to the Court of Appeals but the CA sustained their conviction. They appealed to the Supreme Court but pending decision, Edwin Valdez withdrew his appeal.
ISSUE: Whether or not the conviction of Eduardo Valdez is proper.
HELD: No. He should only be convicted of three counts of homicide. The allegation of treachery in each of the Informations which qualified the crime from homicide to murder was insufficiently made.
Every element of the offense must be stated in the information. What facts and circumstances are necessary to be included therein must be determined by reference to the definitions and essentials of the specified crimes. The requirement of alleging the elements of a crime in the information is to inform the accused of the nature of the accusation against him so as to enable him to suitably prepare his defense. The presumption is that the accused has no independent knowledge of the facts that constitute the offense.
The averments of the Informations to the effect that the two accused “with intent to kill, qualified with treachery, evident premeditation and abuse of superior strength did xxx assault, attack and employ personal violence upon” the victims “by then and there shooting [them] with a gun, hitting [them]” on various parts of their bodies “which [were] the direct and immediate cause of [their] death[s]” did not sufficiently set forth the facts and circumstances describing how treachery attended each of the killings. It should not be difficult to see that merely averring the killing of a person by shooting him with a gun, without more, did not show how the execution of the crime was directly and specially ensured without risk to the accused from the defense that the victim might make. Indeed, the use of the gun as an instrument to kill was not per se treachery, for there are other instruments that could serve the same lethal purpose. Nor did the use of the term treachery constitute a sufficient averment, for that term, standing alone, was nothing but a conclusion of law, not an averment of a fact. In short, the particular acts and circumstances constituting treachery as an attendant circumstance in murder were missing from the informations.
To discharge its burden of informing him of the charge, the State must specify in the information the details of the crime and any circumstance that aggravates his liability for the crime. The requirement of sufficient factual averments is meant to inform the accused of the nature and cause of the charge against him in order to enable him to prepare his defense. It emanates from the presumption of innocence in his favor, pursuant to which he is always presumed to have no independent knowledge of the details of the crime he is being charged with. To have the facts stated in the body of the information determine the crime of which he stands charged and for which he must be tried thoroughly accords with common sense and with the requirements of plain justice.
