People v. Alméstico

18 P.R. 314
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMay 2, 1912
DocketNo. 350
StatusPublished

This text of 18 P.R. 314 (People v. Alméstico) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Alméstico, 18 P.R. 314 (prsupreme 1912).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Aldrey

delivered the opinion of the court.

The fiscal of the District Court for the Judicial District of Ponce filed an information against Juan Almestico charging that during the night of March 28-29, 1910, in barrio Machuelo of Ponce, within the judicial district of Ponce, the said accused, Juan Almestico, did deliberately, treacherously and with malice aforethought, showing that he had a perverted and malignant heart, unlawfully wound Pablo Fran-chi with a blunt instrument upon the back of the head and inflicted upon him four wounds in the back with a sharp instrument, causing his instant death.

.The defendant pleaded not guilty, and a day having been set for the trial the same was held before a jury which, after hearing the evidence, the arguments of counsel and the instructions of the judge, returned a verdict finding Juan Al-méstico guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.

Before the court rendered judgment the accused moved for a new trial on the ground that the court had erred: (1) [316]*316In permitting certain witnesses introduced by the fiscal to testify without notifying the defendant that they would be used against him; (2) because it refused to allow counsel for accused to ask the witness, Cornelio Ayala, whether he had ever been prosecuted for having disguised himself as a machinist while serving as a detective and incited other persons to gamble in order to raid their games, the purpose of the said questions being to impeach the integrity and veracity of that witness; (3) because it did not permit several witnesses introduced by the accused to testify to prove the same fact which it was sought to show on cross-examination with respect to Cornelio Ayala; and (4) because the court refused to allow other witnesses for the accused to be examined in order to show that, prior to the commission of the crime, enmity and bad blood existed between Julio Colón and Carlos Torres, which would show that the statement which the witness, Cornelio Ayala, testified was made by the accused to the effect that he and Julio Colón had killed Franchi by order of Carlos Torres could not be true; this evidence also tending to impeach the veracity of the wdtness, Ayala.

The motion for. a new trial was overruled by the court and the accused did not take an appeal from that order, but only from the judgment; but as the grounds of the motion for a new trial are the same as the exceptions taken and included in the bill of exceptions herein, and as the said exceptions served as a basis for the appeal from the judgment, the questions raised by the motion for a new trial will be disposed of in the decision of the questions involved in the appeal from the judgment.

In addition to the exceptions above mentioned, the appellant alleged as errors that the instructions of the judge to the jury were insufficient, and that the evidence was not sufficient to support a verdict of guilty.

With respect to the information, the appellant did not allege that it was defective, but notwithstanding this fact we have carefully exámined it and find it sufficient.

[317]*317The allegation of appellant that the evidence is insufficient to support a verdict of guilty makes it necessary for us to summarize the evidence in order to ascertain whether or not the allegation is well founded.

From the statement of the case which we have before ns for a decision of the appeal, it appears that the witness, Maria Josefa Anciani, who lives in barrio Machuelo Arriba, testified that she knew Pablo Franchi; that the last time she saw him was on March 28, at 7 o ’clock in the evening, at which time he set out on a bicycle in the direction of the “cine,” and that he carried no weapon other than a knife, with a white handle ornamented with a sprig of scarlet flowers with a very sharp point, forming the shape of a crescent; that between 1 and 2 o ’clock in the morning of March 28-29 she saw him again dead on the carretera leading from Ponce to Juana Diaz, before reaching her house; that he was searched by the judge and the policeman, and the knife with which he left the house was not found, and that she had not seen it again,

According to the testimony of Dr. López Nussa, Pablo Franchi had received a blow upon the head and sustained several wounds in the back and, besides, another blow on the forehead; that the post-mortem examination showed that the wound on the left side of the head was about eight centimeters long, deep, and that it produced a fracture at the base of the skull; that it extended from the region of the temple toward the eye socket; and that he had sustained another small wound about one and a half centimeters long and one centimeter deep; that the wound on the skull must have been produced by a blunt instrument, like a stick, similar to that introduced in evidence at the trial; that it could hardly have been produced by a rock, since it would necessarily have been very large and would have produced a depression in the skull and the wound would not have been a straight one. In regard to the three wounds in the back, they were about three centimeters long, very narrow, very clean-cut and produced by a sharp-cutting instrument such as a knife.

[318]*318At the trial the fiscal introduced in evidence, without objection from the accused, a stick which belonged to the latter, one of the ends of which was stained and which stains, according to the testimony of Dr. Ferrán, were positively blood and not very old. This expert also testified that two small stains upon the trousers of Alméstieo had been examined and proved to be blood stains.

According to the testimony of Judge López Acosta, on the night of March 28-29 he went to the place where the body of Pablo Franchi was found on the carretera; that the corpse was searched and no knife was found; that after daybreak, at about 5 o’clock in the morning, an examination was made of the surrounding ground and tracks were found by the side of the road, and in looking around he found a knife, which is the one introduced in evidence at the trial, and that from the time he saw the body until the knife was found there had not been more than five or six persons at the place, and that in the investigation in which the knife was found he was accompanied by Sergeant Torres Quintero and another policeman.

Sergeant Torres Quintero, of the police force, confirmed the statement in regard to the finding of the knife as testified by the judge.

Deogracias Aguirre, an insular policeman, also went to the place where the crime was committed, and he having been given a list from which to make an investigation, the name of Juan Alméstieo appearing on the said list he went to his house to arrest him, but did not find him there, and that returning to the place at which the crime was committed he saw him standing in a patch of cane near by and there arrested him and that accused became very nervous; that Alméstieo commenced to walk up and down the carretera and picked up a match stem with which he commenced to pick his gums until he made them bleed and let a drop of blood fall on his clothes, when he called the witness and said: “Aguirre, come here and notice that this drop of blood is from my mouth;” that this was so, and he then called Alméstieo’s attention to [319]*319the back of Ms trousers, where he had another blood stain, which was not from his month and about which the accused offered no explanation.

Insular policeman, José R.

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Bluebook (online)
18 P.R. 314, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-almestico-prsupreme-1912.