People v. Quillo
G.R. No. 232338
July 8, 2019
FACTS:
The RTC
and CA convicted Ramon Quillo y Esmani for the crime of Murder under Art. 248.
At about 6:30 p.m. of May 28, 2014, Michael, Gina, Corazon, and the victim,
Vivien Yap-De Castro (Vivien), were walking along Ilang-Ilang Street towards
IBP Road when a black motorcycle of an unknown plate number with two persons
onboard stopped beside them. The back rider shouted "ate!”, pointed a gun
towards Vivien, and fired two (2) successive shots immediately killing the
victim. The witnesses alleged that they saw the face of the back rider as he
was not wearing any helmet. After about one (1) minute from the time Vivien was
shot, the tandem proceeded to Litex Street. Ramon was later identified as the
back rider in Camp Karingal and in court.
ISSUE:
Whether
or not he should be convicted of murder.
HELD:
No. Out-of-court
identification is conducted by the police in various ways. It is done thru
show-ups where the suspect alone is brought face to face with the witness for
identification. It is done thru mug shots where photographs are shown to the
witness to identify the suspect. It is also done thru line-ups where a witness
identifies the suspect from a group of persons lined up for the purpose. Since
corruption of out-of-court identification contaminates the integrity of
in-court identification during the trial of the case, courts have fashioned out
rules to assure its fairness and its compliance with the requirements of
constitutional due process. In resolving the admissibility of and relying on
out-of-court identification of suspects, courts have adopted the totality of
circumstances test where they consider the following factors: (1) the witness' opportunity to view the
criminal at the time of the crime; (2) the witness' degree of attention at that
time; (3) the accuracy of any prior description given by the witness; (4) the
level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification; (5) the
length of time between the crime and the identification; and, (6) the
suggestiveness of the identification procedure. In this case, the
identification was done through a police line-up. Applying the totality of
circumstances test, The Court finds that the out-of-court identification made
by Michael, Gina, and Corazon is unreliable and cannot be made the basis for
Ramon's conviction. A comprehensive analysis of their testimonies reveals that
such are dubious and lack probative weight.
