MALACAT V. CA G.R. No. 123595. December 12, 1997
FACTS:
l Police officer Rodolfu Yu, in response to bomb threats reported seven days earlier, was on foot patrol with three other police officers (all of them in uniform) along Quezon Boulevard, Quiapo, Manila, near the Mercury Drug store at Plaza Miranda.
l They chanced upon two groups of Muslim-looking men, with each group, comprised of three to four men, posted on opposite sides of the corner of Quezon Boulevard near the Mercury Drug Store. These men were acting suspiciously with [t]heir eyes moving very fast.
l Yu and his companions positioned themselves at strategic points and observed both groups for about thirty minutes.
l The police officers then approached one group of men, who then fled in different directions.
l As the policemen gave chase, Yu caught up with and apprehended petitioner.
l Upon searching petitioner, Yu found a fragmentation grenade tucked inside petitioners front waistline.
l Yu’s companion, police officer Rogelio Malibiran, apprehended Abdul Casan from whom a .38 caliber revolver was recovered.
l Petitioner and Casan were then brought to Police Station No. 3 where Yu placed an X mark at the bottom of the grenade and thereafter gave it to his commander.
l On cross-examination, Yu declared that:
1. they conducted the foot patrol due to a report that a group of Muslims was going to explode a grenade somewhere in the vicinity of Plaza Miranda.
2. Yu recognized petitioner as the previous Saturday, 25 August 1990, likewise, at Plaza Miranda, Yu saw petitioner and 2 others attempt to detonate a grenade.
3. The attempt was aborted when Yu and other policemen chased petitioner and his companions; however, the former was unable to catch any of the latter.
4. Yu further admitted that petitioner and Casan were merely standing on the corner of Quezon Boulevard when Yu saw them on 27 August 1990.
5. Although they were not creating a commotion, since they were supposedly acting suspiciously, Yu and his companions approached them.
6. Yu did not issue any receipt for the grenade he allegedly recovered from petitioner.
7. Also, officer Serapio, took petitioner’s confession without a counsel during the inquest.
l Petitioner as the lone witness denied all the allegations against him and asserted that he was just strolling in Plaza Miranda to catch a breath of fresh air and that he was surprisingly apprehended by the police with the allegation that he shoots him and he saw the grenade only in court when it was presented.
l The trial court ruled that the warrantless search and seizure of petitioner was akin to a stop and frisk, where a warrant and seizure can be effected without necessarily being preceded by an arrest and whose object is either to maintain the status quo momentarily while the police officer seeks to obtain more information.
l Probable cause was not required as it was not certain that a crime had been committed, however, the situation called for an investigation, hence to require probable cause would have been premature.
l The RTC emphasized that Yu and his companions were [c]onfronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, threatens the destruction of evidence and the officers [h]ad to act in haste, as petitioner and his companions were acting suspiciously, considering the time, place and reported cases of bombing. Further, petitioners group suddenly ran away in different directions as they saw the arresting officers approach, thus [i]t is reasonable for an officer to conduct a limited search, the purpose of which is not necessarily to discover evidence of a crime but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.
l The trial court then ruled that the seizure of the grenade from petitioner was incidental to a lawful arrest, and since petitioner [l]ater voluntarily admitted such fact to the police investigator for the purpose of bombing the Mercury Drug Store, concluded that sufficient evidence existed to establish petitioners guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
l CA affirmed lower court’s decision.
ISSUE:
WON the warrantless arrest was valid
HELD:
NO. The warrantless arrest is illegal.
According to the SC, the prosecution failed to establish petitioners guilt with moral certainty.
The general rule as regards arrests, searches and seizures are that a warrant is needed in order to validly effect the same. The Constitutional prohibition against unreasonable arrests, searches and seizures refer to those effected without a validly issued warrant, subject to certain exceptions. As regards valid warrantless arrests, these are found in Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, which reads, in part:
Sec. 5. -- Arrest, without warrant; when lawful -- A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:
(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;
(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and
(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped ***
A warrantless arrest under the circumstances contemplated under Section 5(a) has been denominated as one "in flagrante delicto," while that under Section 5(b) has been described as a "hot pursuit" arrest.
Turning to valid warrantless searches, they are limited to the following:
(1) customs searches;
(2) the search of moving vehicles;
(3) seizure of evidence in plain view;
(4) consent searches;
(5) a search incidental to a lawful arrest; and
(6) (6) a "stop and frisk."
In the instant petition, the trial court validated the warrantless search as a stop and frisk with the seizure of the grenade from the accused as an appropriate incident to his arrest, hence necessitating a brief discussion on the nature of these exceptions to the warrant requirement.
At the outset, we note that the trial court confused the concepts of a "stop-and-frisk" and of a search incidental to a lawful arrest. These two types of warrantless searches differ in terms of the requisite quantum of proof before they may be validly effected and in their allowable scope.
In a search incidental to a lawful arrest, as the precedent arrest determines the validity of the incidental search, the legality of the arrest is questioned in a large majority of these cases, e.g., whether an arrest was merely used as a pretext for conducting a search. In this instance, the law requires that there first be a lawful arrest before a search can be made -- the process cannot be reversed. At bottom, assuming a valid arrest, the arresting officer may search the person of the arrestee and the area within which the latter may reach for a weapon or for evidence to destroy, and seize any money or property found which was used in the commission of the crime, or the fruit of the crime, or that which may be used as evidence, or which might furnish the arrestee with the means of escaping or committing violence.
Here, there could have been no valid in flagrante delicto or hot pursuit arrest preceding the search in light of the lack of personal knowledge on the part of Yu, the arresting officer, or an overt physical act, on the part of petitioner, indicating that a crime had just been committed, was being committed or was going to be committed.
Having thus shown the invalidity of the warrantless arrest in this case, plainly, the search conducted on petitioner could not have been one incidental to a lawful arrest.
In the case at bar, at least three (3) reasons why the stop-and-frisk was invalid:
First, we harbor grave doubts as to Yus claim that petitioner was a member of the group which attempted to bomb Plaza Miranda two days earlier. This claim is neither supported by any police report or record nor corroborated by any other police officer who allegedly chased that group. Aside from impairing Yu's credibility as a witness, this likewise diminishes the probability that a genuine reason existed so as to arrest and search petitioner. If only to further tarnish the credibility of Yu's testimony, contrary to his claim that petitioner and his companions had to be chased before being apprehended, the affidavit of arrest (Exh. "A") expressly declares otherwise, i.e., upon arrival of five (5) other police officers, petitioner, and his companions were "immediately collared."
Second, there was nothing in petitioners behavior or conduct which could have reasonably elicited even mere suspicion other than that his eyes were moving very fast an observation which leaves us incredulous since Yu and his teammates were nowhere near petitioner and it was already 6:30 p.m., thus presumably dusk. Petitioner and his companions were merely standing at the corner and were not creating any commotion or trouble.
Third, there was at all no ground, probable or otherwise, to believe that petitioner was armed with a deadly weapon. None was visible to Yu, for as he admitted, the alleged grenade was discovered inside the front waistline of the petitioner, and from all indications as to the distance between Yu and petitioner, any telltale bulge, assuming that petitioner was indeed hiding a grenade, could not have been visible to Yu.
Hence, petitioner is acquitted of the crime under Section 3 of Presidential Decree No. 1866 (IPF)