Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/223/442/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:54:11+00:00

Document:
The provision against double jeopardy in the Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, 3 Stat. 691, c. 1369, § 5, is in terms restricted to instance where the second jeopardy is for the same offense as was the first. Gavieres v. United States, 220 U. S. 338.
A charge of homicide made after death of the person assaulted is not the same as a charge of the assault before the death of that person. One cannot be put in jeopardy for the offense of homicide prior to the death of the person upon whom the crime is committed.
Jeopardy cannot extend to an offense beyond the jurisdiction of the court in which the accused is tried.
One convicted in the Philippine Islands of assault before the death of the injured person is not put in second jeopardy, within the meaning of § 5 of the Philippine Act of 1902, by being placed on trial for homicide after the death of the person assaulted as a consequence of the assault.
The right of confrontation with witnesses secured by § 5 of the Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, is in the nature of a privilege extended to, rather than a restriction placed upon, the accused, and can be waived or asserted as he sees fit.
The admission by consent of the accused, without qualification or restriction, of testimony taken elsewhere, is not a denial of the right of confrontation with witnesses secured by § 5 of the Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, and when so admitted, the testimony is equally available to the government and to the accused.
When evidence taken elsewhere is admitted generally and without restriction by consent of the accused, it is not subject to the objection that it is hearsay.
The right to be heard by himself and counsel secured to the accused in all criminal prosecutions by § 5 of the Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, is the substantial equivalent of the similar right embodied in the Sixth Amendment, by which it should be measured. Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100.
One not in custody cannot avail of the right to be heard so as to defeat the right of the government to try him by absenting himself voluntarily and claiming that, under the right to be present provisions of the Sixth Amendment, the trial cannot proceed.
While the rule may be otherwise in cases that are capital, or where the accused is in custody under the control of the court, or where special statutory provisions apply, where the offense is not capital, and the accused is not in custody, his voluntary absence does not nullify what has been done in, or prevent the completion of, his trial, but operates as a waiver of his right to be present and leaves the court free to proceed, and so held that the continuation of the trial during the voluntary absence of the accused in this case while it proceeded with his counsel present did not violate the provisions of § 5 of the Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, giving him a right to be present and heard.
Although concurrent finding of fact by both the Court of First Instance and the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands are entitled to great respect, this Court may independently examine the evidence, and in this case, after so doing, it affirms the judgment.
On May 30, 1906 at San Carlos, province of Occidental Negros, Philippine Islands, Gabriel Diaz, by blows and kicks, inflicted bodily injuries upon Cornelio Alcanzaren, and by reason thereof was the next day charged before the justice of the peace of San Carlos with assault and battery. At the hearing upon that charge, Diaz was found guilty of a misdemeanor and fined fifty pesetas and costs, which he paid. Subsequently, on the twenty-sixth of June, Alcanzaren died, and Diaz was then charged before the same justice of the peace with homicide, it being alleged that the death ensued from the bodily injuries. At the preliminary investigation of this charge, the justice concluded that there was reasonable cause to believe that it was well founded, and accordingly held the accused to await the action of the Court of First Instance. There was then filed in that court a complaint charging Diaz with the crime of homicide, not capital, upon which he subsequently was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment and other penalties.
upon the body of the deceased performed conformably to the Philippine law, and it was partly upon this testimony that the Court of First Instance rested its judgment of conviction.
Following his conviction, Diaz prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippines, where, subject to a change made in the term of imprisonment (see Trono v. United States, 199 U. S. 521; Flemister v. United States, 207 U. S. 372), the conviction was sustained (15 Phil 123) and the case was then brought here.
identical in some of their elements, were distinct offenses both in law and in fact. The death of the injured person was the principal element of the homicide, but was no part of the assault and battery. At the time of the trial for the latter, the death had not ensued, and not until it did ensue was the homicide committed. Then, and not before, was it possible to put the accused in jeopardy for that offense. Commonwealth v. Roby, 12 Pick. 496; State v. Littlefield, 70 Me. 452; Johnson v. State, 19 Tex.App. 453. Besides, under the Philippine law, the justice of the peace, although possessed of jurisdiction to try the accused for assault and battery, was without jurisdiction to try him for homicide, and, of course, the jeopardy incident to the trial before the justice did not extend to an offense beyond his jurisdiction. All that could be claimed for that jeopardy was that it protected the accused from being again prosecuted for the assault and battery, and therefore required that the latter be not treated as included, as a lesser offense, in the charge of homicide, as otherwise might have been done under Philippine Comp.Stat. § 3284. State v. Littlefield, supra. It follows that the plea of former jeopardy disclosed no obstacle to the prosecution for homicide.
this stipulation's being acted upon. But it would have been more than an impertinence; it would have been gross error. And it would be palpable usurpation of power for us now to set aside a judgment for a neglect of the court not at the time complained of, but in respect to something where any other course would have been plain error. Under the view taken by the respondent, it would seem that, when the evidence had been obtained under his stipulation, the court was put in position where it was impossible to avoid error, for if the evidence was received, he might complain, as he does now, that his constitutional right was violated, and if the court refused to receive it when he was consenting, the respondent would be entitled to have the conviction set aside for that error."
"The Constitution gives the accused the right to a trial at which he should be confronted with the witnesses against him; but if a witness is absent by his own wrongful procurement, he cannot complain if competent evidence is admitted to supply the place of that which he has kept away. The Constitution does not guarantee an accused person against the legitimate consequences of his own wrongful acts. It grants him the privilege of being confronted with the witnesses against him, but if he voluntarily keeps the witnesses away, he cannot insist on his privilege. If, therefore, when absent by his procurement, their evidence is supplied in some lawful way, he is in no condition to assert that his constitutional rights have been violated."
and thereby sought to obtain an advantage from it, he waived his right of confrontation as to that testimony, and cannot now complain of its consideration.
It also is objected that the accused was wrongly convicted in that the trial proceeded in part in his absence. The facts in this connection are these: the accused was represented and heard by counsel at every stage of the proceedings. He also was present in person at all the proceedings preliminary to the trial and at the time it was begun and during the major part of it. But on two occasions, in the latter part of the trial, he voluntarily absented himself, and sent to the court a message expressly consenting that the trial proceed in his absence, which was done. On these occasions, two witnesses for the government were both examined and cross-examined. No complaint grounded upon his absence was made in the trial court or in the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and the objection now made is not that he did not voluntarily waive his right to be present, if he could waive it, but that it could not be waived, and that the court was therefore without power to proceed in his absence.
"SEC. 3270. In all criminal prosecutions, the defendant shall be entitled (a) to appear and defend in person and by counsel at every stage of the proceedings. . . ."
"SEC. 3271. . . . If the charge is for felony (delito), the defendant must be personally present at the arraignment; . . ."
"SEC. 3280. A plea of guilty can be put in only by the defendant himself in open court. . . ."
"SEC. 3296. The defendant must be personally present at the time of pronouncing judgment, if the conviction is for a felony. . . . "
Not only is there such a difference in the terms of these sections as naturally implies a difference in meaning, but it is evident that, unless the first means something less than that the accused must be present at every stage of the proceedings, there was no occasion for the provisions quoted from the others, and also that, if the terms used in the others were deemed essential to express the thought that the accused must be present at particular stages of the proceedings, like terms would have been employed in the first had it been intended to make his presence equally requisite at other stages. It therefore is evident that the effect of these sections, when their differing terms are considered, is to make the presence of the accused indispensable at the arraignment at the time the plea is taken, if it be one of guilt, and when judgment is pronounced, and to entitle him to be present at all other stages of the proceedings, but not to make his presence thereat indispensable. As here it does not appear, and is not claimed, that the accused was absent at any of the times when his presence was thus made indispensable, and as his absence during the latter part of the trial was not only voluntary, but coupled with an express consent that it should proceed in the presence of his counsel, as was done, it is plain that there was no infraction of the Philippine laws in that regard.
several states, and its substantial equivalent is embodied in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is the right which these constitutional provisions secure to persons accused of crime in this country that was carried to the Philippines by the congressional enactment, and therefore according to a familiar rule, the prevailing course of decision here may and should be accepted as determinative of the nature and measure of the right there. Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100, 195 U. S. 124.
211 Ill. 158; Barton v. State, 67 Ga. 653; Robson v. State, 83 Ga. 166; Price v. State, 36 Miss. 531; Gales v. State, 64 Miss. 105; State v. Ricks, 32 La.Ann. 1098; State v. Perkins, 40 La.Ann. 210; State v. Kelly, 97 N.C. 404; Lynch v. Commonwealth, 88 Pa. 189; Gore v. State, 52 Ark. 285; State v. Hope, 100 Mo. 347; Frey v. Calhoun Circuit Judge, 107 Mich. 130; People v. Mathews, 139 Cal. 527; State v. Way, 76 Kan. 928; Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 163 Mass. 458; United States v. Davis, 6 Blatchf. 464; United States v. Loughery, 13 Blatchf. 267; Falk v. United States, 15 App.D.C. 446, 454, s.c., 180 U.S. 636.
"It is the right of the defendant in cases of felony . . . to be present at all stages of the trial -- especially at the rendition of the verdict, and if he be in such custody and confinement . . . as not to be present unless sent for and relieved by the court, the reception of the verdict during such compulsory absence is so illegal as to necessitate the setting it aside. . . . The principle thus ruled is good sense and sound law, because he cannot exercise the right to be present at the rendition of the verdict when in jail unless the officer of the court brings him into the court by its order."
"But the case is quite different when, after being present through the progress of the trial and up to the dismissal of the jury to their room, he voluntarily absents himself from the court room, where he and his bail obligated themselves that he should be. . . . And the absolute necessity of the distinction, or the abolition of the continuance of the bail when the trial begins, is seen, when it is considered that otherwise there could be no conviction of any defendant unless he wished to be present at the time the verdict is rendered. "
of justice as to the true interests of civil liberty. . . ."
"[P. 460] The question is one of broad public policy, whether an accused person, placed upon trial for crime, and protected by all the safeguards with which the humanity of our present criminal law sedulously surrounds him, can with impunity defy the processes of that law, paralyze the proceedings of courts and juries, and turn them into a solemn farce, and ultimately compel society, for its own safety, to restrict the operation of the principle of personal liberty. Neither in criminal nor in civil cases will the law allow a person to take advantage of his own wrong. And yet this would be precisely what it would do if it permitted an escape from prison, or an absconding from the jurisdiction while at large on bail, during the pendency of a trial before a jury, to operate as a shield."
"That which the law makes essential in proceedings involving the deprivation of life or liberty cannot be dispensed with or affected by the consent of the accused, much less by his mere failure, when on trial and in custody, to object to unauthorized methods."
"the prisoner was not brought face to face with the jury until after the challenges had been made and the selected jurors were brought into the box to be sworn,"
time to the mode in which the challenges were required to be made. The ruling in this Court was that the making of the challenges was an essential part of the trial, and that it was the right of the accused to be brought face to face with the jurors when the challenges were made. The other two cases are even less in point. In one, the question was whether the presence of the accused was essential in proceedings on error in an appellate court, and it was held that it was not essential. And in the other, the question was whether, when the applicable law contemplated that the accused should be tried before a tribunal composed of a court and a jury of twelve, he could by his silence or consent authorize a tribunal differently composed, and not recognized by law, to try him, and it was held that he could not.
Lastly, it is insisted that the evidence was inadequate to warrant the conviction. The trial was to the court without a jury, as is permitted in the Philippines, and both the trial court and the Supreme Court of the Islands concurred in finding the accused guilty under the evidence. Of course, these concurring findings are entitled to great respect. Nevertheless, following the rule recognized in Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S. 632, 163 U. S. 658, and Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207, 197 U. S. 222, we have attentively examined the evidence as set forth in the record and discussed in the opinions of the Philippine courts, and are clearly of opinion that the conviction was warranted by it.
He was not confronted with the witnesses, but the court accepted his telegraphic waiver, and the trial thereafter proceeded without the defendant being present. Witnesses were examined, argument of counsel made, and three months later, sentence was pronounced, all in his absence.
On appeal, the judgment was reversed by the Supreme Court of the Philippines, not for the purpose of setting the judgment aside, but to inflict a penalty of more than two-fold severity, and to raise the term of imprisonment from six to fourteen years in the penitentiary.
The act of July 1, 1902, regulating the government of the Philippine Islands, does not provide for trial by jury, nor does it destroy the power of the appellate court to change the sentence in a criminal case. But the absence of the right to trial by jury and the presence of the danger of appeal make it all the more important to enforce those safeguards copied from the Constitution of the United States and granted the people of those islands.
shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to have a speedy and public trial, to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process to compel the attendance of witnesses in his behalf."
"That no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law, and no person for the same offense shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
The opinion proceeds upon the theory that, while a defendant has the right to be confronted with the witnesses, he may waive that privilege in all except capital cases. In support of that proposition, many authorities are cited.
In some of these cases, the defendant was voluntarily absent from the court room for a short time without the attention of the court being called to the fact. In others, the defendant escaped while the trial was in progress. In others, having given bail, he failed to return in time to hear the verdict read. In all of them, the court's decision was expressly, or by necessary implication, placed upon the ground that the defendant could not take advantage of his own wrong, and render a trial nugatory by escape or making an improper use of his bail.
"The argument to the contrary necessarily proceeds upon the ground that he alone is concerned as to the mode by which he may be deprived of his life or liberty. . . . This is a mistaken view. . . . The public has an interest in his life and liberty. Neither can be lawfully taken except in the mode prescribed by law. . . . If he be deprived of his life or liberty without being so present, such deprivation would be without that due process of law required by the Constitution."
It is true, as pointed out in the opinion of the Court here, that this was said in a case where the defendant was on trial for his life. But the principle was announced in language which, repeatedly and expressly, made it applicable to felonies, and wherever the defendant might be deprived of his life or liberty. The defendant in such cases cannot waive his right to be present when his liberty is involved any more than when his life is at stake. And it is a misnomer to say that, when he escapes or refuses to be present, that he has waived the right. He has made it impossible for the court to give him his rights.
in the method of trial, ignoring the fact that, as said in the Hopt case, "the public had an interest in his life and liberty."
In order to make this want of necessity clear, it will be necessary to state some of the facts as they appear in this record.
The defendant lived in the Town of San Carlos, in the Province of Occidental Negros. He was charged with having killed Alcanzaren in that municipality. After a preliminary trial, he was bound over to answer for the charge of homicide -- equivalent to manslaughter, and not punishable by death. He gave bond, and was subsequently brought to trial before the Court of First Instance, sitting at Bacolod, which, according to the maps, is about 30 miles from San Carlos, and on the other side of the Island. The distance between the two places by water is about 100 miles.
Diaz was arraigned and pleaded "not guilty" September 26, 1906. The case was several times continued, the defendant once or twice consenting. But on August 15, 1907, eleven months after arraignment, the trial began, the defendant and his counsel being present.
Two witnesses for the prosecution were examined. "At the request of the Fiscal, the hearing was suspended and an order was issued for the arrest of" three absent witnesses. The record does not show to what date the court adjourned. But fourteen days later it reconvened, the defendant and his counsel again being present. The trial was resumed August 29, 1907, and two witnesses for the prosecution were examined.
"SAN CARLOS, Sept. 20/07, Sept. 20, '07."
"I waive right to be present during examination of government witnesses."
"on September 20, 1907, in open court, the Honorable Vincent Jocson, of the Tenth District, presiding, the Provincial Fiscal and the counsel for defendant being present, the accused himself having waived his right to be present at the trial, according to a telegram just received from him, the trial of this case was resumed and Pelagio Carbajosa, a witness for the prosecution, was examined. The prosecution them rested. The counsel for defendant only introduced in evidence a certified copy of the proceedings before the justice court. . . . The trial was then adjourned for the purpose of allowing the Fiscal to introduce evidence in rebuttal."
"The trial of this case was resumed, and a witness for the prosecution was examined in rebuttal. The Fiscal then rested his case, and counsel for the accused waived his right to introduce further evidence. Both parties having rested, the Fiscal and counsel for the defendant, respectively, made their oral arguments, and the court declared the trial closed, and took the case under advisement."
confinement in the penitentiary for six years and one day.
Notice of this sentence was evidently received by the defendant, because on January 17, 1908, he entered an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippines. One of the judges of that court held that "there was no competent evidence to sustain a conviction," but the majority, "notwithstanding the deficiencies and irregularities that are observable in the prosecution of this case," reversed the case, not for the purpose of setting aside the conviction, but solely for the purpose of increasing the penalty. It thereupon sentenced him to a penalty of fourteen years of reclusion temporal, with the accessory penalties of Art. 59 of the Penal Code.
From these facts it will be seen that the Philippine Court of First Instance was not in the situation of an American court with a jury impaneled and under the necessity either of proceeding to verdict in the defendant's absence, or of discharging the jury, and rendering the trial nugatory. It assumed that, if Diaz was willing to be absent, the court could accept his waiver. The procedure adopted was evidently in accordance with the judge's view of the Spanish law, but in disregard of the fact that, under the Bill of Rights, when the trial began, the defendant stood upon his deliverance. There could thereafter be the customary adjournments from day to day, but no suspensions of the trial except "in case of urgent necessity," "and for very plain and obvious causes." United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 580; Thompson v. United States, 155 U. S. 274.
or for other proper cause, in the discretion of the judge conducting the trial. But without regard to the delay of eleven months between arraignment and trial, the extremest extension heretofore allowed is insignificant by comparison with those here, first for two weeks and then for thirty days. In both these instances, the record fails to show that the defendant objected, and it may be that, if he can waive the right to be confronted by the witnesses, he may waive the guaranty against multiplied jeopardy. For that right is not greater than the right to be present at every stage of the trial.
The court being of the opinion that the defendant need not be present at the trial, it is not surprising that he thought the defendant might also be absent when judgment was rendered and sentence pronounced. It is true that the Philippine Code expressly declares that the defendant "must be personally present at the time of pronouncing judgment if the conviction is for a felony." But that could no more add to the Bill of Rights than a statute could repeal the requirement that the defendant should be confronted with the witnesses and be present at every stage of the trial. That the defendant was not personally present is both the legal inference and the natural conclusion from what appears in the record. When the court took the case under advisement on September 21, 1907, it passed no order indicating when the decision would be delivered, even if it had the right to hold the defendant in suspense for days and weeks and months. There was therefore no reason for the defendant to be present at Bacolod on December 24, in anticipation that judgment would be entered on that date.
he was present. In the present case, the presumption would be the other way, because, having been absent during the last two days of the trial, there is no reason to assume that he was present when, after an indeterminate suspension, the court reconvened. At any rate, there is peculiar room for the application of the rule in federal courts announced in Lewis v. United States, 146 U. S. 372, that "where the personal presence is necessary in point of law, the record must show the fact."
In my opinion, the conviction was not only erroneous because the defendant was not present when the witnesses were examined and argument made, but, having been unlawfully put in double jeopardy, and judgment equivalent to verdict having been pronounced in his absence, he is entitled to his discharge. Nolan v. State, 55 Ga. 521.
It may be that such views would work a radical change in criminal procedure in the Philippines. But when Congress incorporated the language of the Sixth Amendment into the Act of July 1, 1902, it must have intended to make just such changes, and to require the trial to be conducted in the American manner, and, among other things, also to prohibit suspensions and undue prolongation of the hearing, so as thereby to prevent the pain and anxiety which must inevitably be suffered by a prisoner who is thus kept on a mental rack.
These considerations compel me to dissent, and to add, that, if the effort to review this judgment can lawfully result in having the sentence more than doubled, it imposes a penalty on the exercise of the right, and makes it worse to appeal than to submit to conviction on record which the Supreme Court of the Philippines admitted presented "irregularities and deficiencies."

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 Art. 59
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