People vs. Zapata and Bondoc

Each completed act of sexual intercourse constitutes a separate, consummated crime of adultery, and prosecution for adulterous acts not included in an earlier complaint is not barred by double jeopardy. Because adultery is consummated and exhausted at the moment of carnal union, as many complaints may be filed as there were adulterous acts committed.

Andres Bondoc was the offended husband of Guadalupe Zapata, who was charged as having maintained an adulterous relationship with Dalmacio Bondoc as her paramour. Adultery protects the marital union of husband and wife and the interest of the State in maintaining and preserving that status against encroachment while the status remains unchanged.

Andres Bondoc was married to Guadalupe Zapata. In the Court of First Instance of Pampanga, he filed a complaint for adultery against Zapata and Dalmacio Bondoc, alleged to be her paramour, for cohabiting and having repeated sexual intercourse during the period from the year 1946 to 14 March 1947, the date of the filing of the complaint, with Dalmacio Bondoc knowing his co-defendant to be a married woman. The wife entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to suffer four months of arresto mayor, which penalty she served.

Thereafter, on 17 September 1948, the offended husband filed another complaint in the same court against the same defendants for adulterous acts committed from 15 March 1947 to 17 September 1948, the date of the filing of the second complaint. On 21 February 1949, each defendant filed a motion to quash the second complaint on the ground that they would be twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense.

The trial court upheld the contention and quashed the second complaint. It found that the adulterous acts charged in the first and second complaints must be deemed one continuous offense, the defendants being the same and identical persons and the two sets of acts having taken place continuously during 1946, 1947 and part of 1948, constituting one and the same offense within the double jeopardy clause.

• Double Jeopardy: Respondents maintained that the second complaint placed them twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense, the adulterous acts in both complaints being deemed one continuous offense committed by the same persons continuously during 1946, 1947 and part of 1948.
• Identity of Offense: Respondents argued that the two sets of unlawful acts constituted one and the same offense within the constitutional prohibition against being twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense.

• Nature of Adultery: Whether adultery is a single continuous offense or whether each act of sexual intercourse constitutes a separate crime.
• Double Jeopardy: Whether prosecution of the second complaint, charging adulterous acts committed after the period covered by the first complaint, places defendants twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense.

• Nature of Adultery: No, it is not a single continuous offense. Each sexual intercourse consummates and exhausts a separate crime of adultery, there being no unity of criminal intent required to complete another act.
• Double Jeopardy: No. The second complaint charges distinct crimes not included in the first, so trial thereon is not barred, there being no constitutional or legal bar to as many complaints as there were adulterous acts.

• Nature of Adultery: Adultery is a crime of result and not of tendency, an instantaneous crime consummated and exhausted or completed at the moment of carnal union. Identity of offended husband, marital status, and societal interest does not merge repeated encroachments into one offense, for as long as the status remains unchanged and the nexus undissolved, each trespass constitutes a crime. The concept of continuous crime, a juridical fiction requiring (a) plurality of separately performed acts during a period of time, (b) unity of penal provision violated, and (c) unity of criminal intent or purpose uniting the violations toward the same criminal aim, was not satisfied because the last unity was absent where each intercourse alone consummates the crime without need for another act.
• Double Jeopardy: After the last acts charged in the first complaint, defendants again committed adulterous acts not included therein, for which the second complaint was filed, and a subsequent crime was likewise recognized where defendants reoffended after provisional release or service of penalty. Barring the second prosecution would leave punishable conduct unpunished, as where a male defendant acquitted on the first charge for not knowing the woman was married could not invoke the same defense for later acts committed with knowledge, and as where a husband's pardon covers previous but not subsequent adulterous acts.

• Adultery as instantaneous crime — Adultery is a crime of result and not of tendency, consummated and exhausted or completed at the moment of carnal union. Applied here, each sexual intercourse by the same defendants was treated as a completed crime, so acts committed after the period in the first complaint supported a separate prosecution in People vs. Zapata and Bondoc.
• Separate crimes for each adulterous act — There is no constitutional or legal provision barring as many complaints for adultery as there were adulterous acts committed, each constituting one crime. Applied here, the second complaint covering 15 March 1947 to 17 September 1948 was allowed despite the earlier complaint covering 1946 to 14 March 1947.
• Continuous crime; requisites — For a continuous crime to exist there must be plurality of acts performed separately during a period of time, unity of penal provision infringed, and unity of criminal intent or purpose uniting two or more violations of the same provision toward the same criminal aim. Applied here, the third requisite was absent because each adulterous act is complete by itself and does not require another act to consummate a single purpose.
• Pardon in adultery as prospective limitation — A husband's pardon of his adulterous wife refers to previous and not to subsequent adulterous acts and does not exempt the wife and her paramour from liability for acts committed after the pardon. Cited here to reinforce that completed liability for an earlier period does not absorb later, distinct adulterous acts.

• "Adultery is a crime of result and not of tendency, as the Supreme Court of Spain has held (S. 10 December 1945); it is a instantaneous crime which is consummated and exhausted or completed at the moment of the carnal union." — Defines the controlling characterization of adultery that makes each intercourse a completed offense rather than a continuing one.
• "Each sexual intercourse constitutes a crime of adultery (Cuello Calon, Derecho Penal, Vol. II, p. 569)." — States the concise rule applied to reject merger of repeated acts into one offense.
• "There is no constitutional or legal provision which bars the filing of as many complaints for adultery as there were adulterous acts committed, each constituting one crime." — Articulates the ratio permitting the second prosecution for acts outside the first complaint period.
• "No person shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense." — Recites the constitutional guarantee invoked by defendants and held inapplicable because the two complaints charged different crimes.

• Supreme Court of Spain, S. 10 December 1945 — Cited as authority that adultery is a crime of result and not of tendency.
• Supreme Court of Spain, S. 28 February 1906; 76 Jur. Crim. pp. 208-210 — Cited as authority that another crime of adultery is committed if defendants reoffend after provisional release during pendency of the case in which they were sent to prison to serve the penalty imposed.

• Double jeopardy clause, Constitution — Provides that no person shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense. Applied to hold that the guarantee was not violated because the first and second complaints charged different adulterous acts committed in distinct periods, each constituting a separate offense.

Feria, Pablo, Tuason and Jugo, JJ., concur; Paras, C.J., Bengzon and Montemayor, JJ., concur in the result; Reyes, J., voted for reversal.