Criminal Law Case Digest:

ESTRADA vs SANDIGANBAYAN

Facts:

Petitioner Joseph Estrada prosecuted the crime of Plunder, wishes to impress upon the Court that the argued law is so defective since it crosses that thin but distinct line which divides the valid from the constitutionally infirm. The herein contentions are mainly based on the effects of the said law which suffers from the vice of vagueness; it dispenses with the “reasonable doubt” standard in criminal prosecutions; and it abolishes the element of mens rea in crimes already punishable under The Revised Penal Code saying that it violates the fundamental rights of the accused. The focal point of the case is the alleged “vagueness” of the law in the terms it uses. Particularly, these terms are: combination, series and unwarranted. Because of this, the petitioner uses the facial challenge on the validity of the mentioned law.

 

Issue:

Whether Plunder as defined in RA 7080 is a malum prohibitum, and if so, whether it is within the power of Congress to so classify it.

 

Ruling:

No. It is malum in se which requires proof of criminal intent because the constitutive crimes are mala in se; the element of mens rea must be proven in a prosecution for plunder. It is noteworthy that the amended information alleges that the crime of plunder was committed “willfully, unlawfully and criminally.” It thus alleges guilty knowledge on the part of petitioner.

 

Further, the statute omitted the requirement of mens rea and that is the reason he claims the statute is void, petitioner cites the following remarks of Senator Tañada made during the deliberation on S.B. No.733. Senator Tañada was only saying that where the charge is conspiracy to commit plunder, the prosecution need not prove each and every criminal act done to further the scheme or conspiracy, it being enough if it proves beyond reasonable doubt a pattern of overt or criminal acts indicative of the overall unlawful scheme or conspiracy. As far as the acts constituting the pattern are concerned, however, the elements of the crime must be proved and the requisite mens rea must be shown.

 

The application of mitigating and extenuating circumstances in the Revised Penal Code to prosecutions under the Anti-Plunder Law indicates quite clearly that mens rea is an element of plunder since the degree of responsibility of the offender is determined by his criminal intent.

 

Finally, any doubt as to whether the crime of plunder is a malum in se must be deemed to have been resolved in the affirmative by the decision of Congress in 1993 to include it among the heinous crimes punishable by reclusion perpetua to death. The evil of a crime may take various forms. There are crimes that are, by their very nature, despicable, either because life was callously taken or the victim is treated like an animal and utterly dehumanized as to completely disrupt the normal course of his or her growth as a human being. There are crimes however in which the abomination lies in the significance and implications of the subject criminal acts in the scheme of the larger socio-political and economic context in which the state finds itself to be struggling to develop and provide for its poor and underprivileged masses.

 

The legislative declaration in R.A. No.7659 that plunder is a heinous offense implies that it is a malum in se. For when the acts punished are inherently immoral or inherently wrong, they are mala in se and it does not matter that such acts are punished in a special law, especially since in the case of plunder the predicate crimes are mainly mala in se.

 

The premises considered, the Court holds that RA 7080 otherwise known as the Plunder Law, as amended by RA 7659, is CONSTITUTIONAL. Consequently, the petition to declare the law unconstitutional is DISMISSED for lack of merit