United States vs. Eduave

A felony is frustrated when the offender performs all acts of execution which should produce the felony as a consequence, but the felony is not produced due to causes independent of the perpetrator's will. The crime is not merely attempted if the subjective phase of the offense is completely passed.

The case involves a criminal prosecution for a violent attack. The accused, incensed that the victim had filed a criminal complaint against him for rape and causing her pregnancy, assaulted her with a bolo.

• Filed in the Court of First Instance (provincial branch).
• The lower court convicted the accused.
• The case was appealed directly to the Supreme Court (as was the procedure at the time).

• The accused, Protasio Eduave, was the querido (lover) of the victim's mother and lived with them.
• The victim had previously charged the accused with raping her and causing her pregnancy.
• Enraged, the accused rushed upon the girl suddenly and struck her from behind with a sharp bolo.
• The blow created a frightful gash in the lumbar region, eight and one-half inches long and two inches deep, severing all muscles and tissues.
• The accused stated his purpose to kill, believed he had killed her, and threw her body into the bushes.
• When he later surrendered, he declared he had killed the complainant.
• The victim, however, survived.

• The accused (appellant) argued that if death had resulted, the crime would have been homicide, not murder, implying the absence of qualifying circumstances like alevosia (treachery).
• He further argued that the crime committed was only attempted, not frustrated, homicide/murder.

• The prosecution (plaintiff-appellee) contended the crime was frustrated murder, qualified by alevosia, as the attack was sudden and from behind.

• Procedural Issues: N/A
• Substantive Issues:
  1. Whether the qualifying circumstance of alevosia attended the commission of the crime.
  2. Whether the crime committed was frustrated murder or merely attempted murder.

• Procedural: N/A
• Substantive:
  1. Yes. The SC found alevosia present. The accused made a sudden attack upon his victim from the rear, dealing a terrible blow with his bolo. This treacherous method qualified the crime as murder if death had resulted.
  2. The crime is frustrated murder. The SC distinguished between attempted and frustrated felony based on the subjective phase test. The accused performed all acts of execution (the sudden attack, the severe blow with a deadly weapon to a vital part). The victim did not die due to causes independent of the accused's will (e.g., medical intervention, her own resilience), not because he voluntarily desisted. Therefore, the subjective phase was completely passed, making the crime frustrated, not attempted.

• Subjective Phase Test for Stages of Execution — This test distinguishes between attempted and frustrated felonies.
• Subjective Phase: The period between the act that begins the commission of the crime and the last act performed by the offender which, with prior acts, should result in the consummated crime. It is the period of acts over which the offender has control.
• Attempted Felony: The offender is stopped by an outside cause or accident before completing all acts of execution (i.e., during the subjective phase).
• Frustrated Felony: The offender performs all acts of execution that should produce the crime (i.e., the subjective phase is completely passed), but the crime is not consummated due to causes independent of his will.
• Alevosia (Treachery) — The employment of means, methods, or forms in the execution of a crime that tend directly and specially to ensure its execution, without risk to the offender arising from the defense the offended party might make. Here, the sudden attack from behind qualified the killing as murder.

• "A felony is frustrated when the offender performs all the acts of execution which should produce the felony as a consequence, but which, nevertheless, do not produce it by reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator."
• "The essential element which distinguishes attempted from frustrated felony is that, in the latter, there is no intervention of a foreign or extraneous cause or agency between the beginning of the commission of the crime and the moment when all of the acts have been performed which should result in the consummated crime; while in the former there is such intervention..."
• "In case of frustrated crimes the subjective phase is completely passed. Subjectively the crime is complete."

• N/A (The decision does not cite prior case law, relying instead on statutory definitions from the Penal Code).

• Article 3 of the Spanish Penal Code (as then enforced in the Philippines) — Provided the definitions of frustrated and attempted felonies, which were central to the ruling.
• Provisions on Murder (Penal Code) — The crime was qualified as murder due to the presence of alevosia.

• N/A (Justices Torres and Araullo concurred without separate opinion; Justices Carson and Trent concurred in the result only, without explanation).