Criminal Law- People vs.

Opero

This is with regard to Article 4 par 1 and it also touches upon Art 8 (w/ regards to conspiracy)

"the crime is different from that which was intended"

Case of People of the R.P. vs. Opero

No. L-48796 11JUNE1989

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Automatic review of the death sentence imposed on Roberto Opero for the crime of Robbery with
homicide.

At about 04:00am of April 27, 1978, Salvador Oliver and Demetrio Barcing both security guards assigned
to the House International Hotel, in Ongpin street, Binondo, Manila checked room 314 of the said hotel
and found Liew Soon Ping dead while bound and gagged. Room 314 was ransacked and the personal
belongings were thrown all around. After rushing back from Cebu, Dr. Hong the husband of the victim
made an inventory of the things found missing in his residence, valued at 30,221 pesos.

The Samar P.C. arrested the suspects in the case, and turned them over to Sgt. Yanguiling in manila.
During the autopsy of the body of the victim, it was found out that the cause of death wasasphyxiation
by suffocation.

** When a homicide results from a robbery, all those who took part in the robbery are all guilty of
Robbery with homicide, unless proof is presentedthat the accused tried to prevent the killing.

ISSUES OF THE CASE:

Is Roberto Opero and others liable for the death of the victim, when the intent was for robbery only?

-appellant advanced the theory that the intent was to rob the victim and not to kill her, if the intent was
to kill, then he could have easily done so, with the knife that he had.

-There is no basis in law or in jurisprudence for the appellant's assertion. It was repeatedly held that
when direct and intimate connection exists between robbery and the killing, regardless of the two
which precedes the other, or whether they are committed at the same time, the crime committed is the
special complex crime of robbery with homicide.

-Even if the intent was not for the victim to be killed, what is important and decisive is that death
results by reason or on occasion of the robbery

-needs to consider as well that there are two aggravating circumstances of superior strength and
dwelling and that there is ONLY one mitigating circumstance of not having intended to kill the victim.

HELD:

-JUDGEMENT OF THE LOWER COURT WAS AFFIRMED APPELANT OPERO IS GUILTY BEYOND REASONABLE
DOUBT OF ROBBERY WITH HOMICIDE.