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Case digest · Attempted felony; indeterminate offense
People vs. Lamahang
Caught at dawn prying open a store wall in Iloilo City with an iron bar. Attempted robbery, or something else?
Facts
March 2, 1935
At early dawn, a policeman patrolling Delgado and C.R. Fuentes streets in Iloilo City caught Lamahang making an opening with an iron bar on the wall of a store of cheap goods. The owner, Tan Yu, was sleeping inside with another man.
Caught in the act
Lamahang had broken only one board and unfastened another from the wall when the policeman showed up and arrested him.
The conviction
The provincial fiscal, the trial judge and the Solicitor-General all treated the act as attempted robbery. The Court of First Instance of Iloilo convicted him of attempted robbery and added a penalty for being a habitual delinquent.
The appeal
Lamahang appealed to the Supreme Court.
Issue
Does breaking into the wall of a store, with nothing more shown, constitute attempted robbery?
Ruling
No. It was attempted trespass to dwelling, not attempted robbery. The sentence was revoked.
An attempt punishable under the Penal Code must have a logical relation to a particular, concrete offense. The record showed only that Lamahang intended to enter the store by force against the owner’s will. Whether he meant to rob, to injure the people inside, or to commit some other offense once inside, nothing in the record justified a concrete finding. Acts that can be read as innocent as well as punishable cannot, by themselves, ground an attempted or frustrated crime. The Court convicted him of attempted trespass to dwelling committed by means of force, with the aggravating circumstances of nighttime and former convictions and the mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction, and sentenced him to three months and one day of arresto mayor.
“The attempt to commit an indeterminate offense, inasmuch as its nature in relation to its objective is ambiguous, is not a juridical fact from the standpoint of the Penal Code.”
Doctrine
“…the attempt to commit an offense which the Penal Code punishes is that which has a logical relation to a particular, concrete offense…” The overt acts “must be such that, without the intent to commit an offense, they would be meaningless.”
Compare: theft consummated
In Valenzuela vs. People, G.R. No. 160188, June 21, 2007, the target crime was clear, and the question was the stage: theft is consummated once the offender gains possession of the thing, so there is no frustrated theft.
Bar tip
To name the attempted crime, ask what the overt acts themselves show. If they show only a forcible entry into a dwelling, the answer is attempted trespass to dwelling, not attempted robbery, unless an intent to take personal property for gain clearly appears.
Watch it explained
Nahuli Bago Makalabas ng Mall — Frustrated Theft Ba?
This digest is general legal information for education, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the decision. Quoted passages are taken word for word from the full text.