ETHICAL BASIS OF

CRIMINAL LAW

The basis of criminal law is the moral law

which tell us what is inherently good or bad.
Hence, ethical act is essentially lawful and
crimes therefore are considered unethical,
since they are necessarily bad. The ones
declared by law as crimes or felonies, for
instance killing, theft, rape, fraud and the
like.
INTELLIGEN
CE

- Is the person capacity to distinguish what

is good from bad, what is correct from
wrong; what is moral from immoral; and
what is lawful and unlawful. The insane, the
imbecile, the minor cannot be held criminal
liable for lack of intelligence.
 INTENT

- Is the mental disposition of a person to

do a desired act. It is a deliberate in the sense
that is induced by his thought expresses
through his action or behavior. Thus, a
criminal intent is manifested by a voluntary
act and done with malice. It is a means to
achieve a definite result.
 MURDER

Any person who killed another, not failing

under Article 246(parricide) with the
attendant of any of the following
circumstances is guilty of murder.

1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior

strength, with the aid of armed men or
employing means to weaken the defense, or
of means or person to insure or afford
impunity;
2. It consideration of a price, reward or promise;
3. By means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion,
shipwreck, stranding of a vessel, derailment or
assault upon a railroad, fall of an airship, by means
of motor vehicles, or with the use of any other
means involving great waste and ruin;
4. On occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in
the preceding paragraph, or of an earthquake,
eruption of a volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic,
or other public calamity;
5. With evident pre-meditation;

6. Which cruelty, by deliberately and

inhumanly augmenting the suffering of a
victim, or outgoing or scoffing at his person
of corps (Art. 248 as amended by RA 7659).
 KILLING BY
BURNING
Killing of a person by means of fire murder,
only when there is actual designed to kill on the
part of defender (US vs. Burns 41, Phil. 418).

Although he did not intend to kill the

deceased, but since the defender had committed
the crime with treachery, he is guilty of murder
because of the voluntary presence of the
qualifying circumstances of treachery (People
vs. Cagoeo, 58 Phil. 530).
 The killing of the victims is qualified with
treachery, when the shooting was sudden and
unexpected, and the victims were not in a
position to defend themselves ( people vs.
Aguilar, 88 Phil, 693).
KILLING OF A CHILD

An attack made by a man with a weapon

upon a girl which resulted in her death is murder,
because the offender had a taken advantage of
superior strength. His sex and weapon gave him
superior strength (People vs. Quezada, 62 Phil.
446).
REWARD / PRICE
The person who killed another due to the
reward or price or promise thereof without
which he would have not killed is guilty of
murder.
PRE-
MEDITATION
Evident pre-meditation qualifies the killing
into murder when it is proven that:

1. The time when the offender determined

(conceived) to kill his victim.
2. An act of the offender manifestly indicates that
he clings to his determination to kill the victim;
and,

3. A sufficient lapse of time between the

determination and the execution of the killing
(people vs. Lano, CA 36 OG 1120).
Outgoing is to commit an extremely vicious or
deeply insulting act
There is cruelty to qualify the killing into
murder when other wounds were inflicted upon
him while still alive (people vs. Lozada, GR No.
L-47692, June 4, 1948).
Scoffing of the Dead
The killer scooped the dead when the
intestine were removed and hung around the
neck of the victim’s brother as a “necklace” and
the lungs and liver were facetiously described as
“pulutan”.