People v. Lafont

54 P.R. 351
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedFebruary 25, 1939
DocketNo. 7272
StatusPublished

This text of 54 P.R. 351 (People v. Lafont) 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. Lafont, 54 P.R. 351 (prsupreme 1939).

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Del- Toro

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Eugenio Lafont Pacheco was charged, before the Municipal Court of Fajardo, with carrying a prohibited, weapon, because he carried upon his person, in Fajardo, on the night of February 15, T936, a revolver. ,

The case went on' appeal to the District Court of Huma-cao, and after a trial dé novo, the-court found Lafont guilty and sentenced hiin to one' month'in jail. Feeling aggrieved, he appealed to this court assigning two errors in his brief. [352]*352By the first on,e he maintains that the .evidence is insufficient and by the second one that the court erred in refusing to order the case filed away nunc pro tunc, as prayed for by defendant.

The first error was not committed. We have examined the evidence and, in our opinion, it is sufficient. The fact that the defendant was carrying the weapon was plainly shown by the testimony of Claudio Rodríguez and Juan Becerril. The conflict existing between said declarations can be explained without destroying their weight.

Arguing the second assignment of error the appellant states in his brief:

"Concerning the second error, to show that it was committed, we must mention certain facts that will explain the position adopted by the defendant, before this court.
"On or about April 1, 1937, while a case was pending against this accused before the District Court of Humacao for breach of the peace, the district attorney moved for a continuance of other cases pending against Eugenio Lafont, among which was the one at bar. The undersigned attorney objected to the continuance, and the court, presided by the Hon. Francisco González Fagundo, postponed the case until such date as the district attorney was able to summon an absent witness. Matters thus, more than one hundred and twenty days having elapsed without setting the case of Eugenio Lafont for trial, he presented on August 23, 1937, a motion to file away the case, which motion was officially remitted to the clerk of the District Court of Humacao so that he would file it and notify it to the district attorney. The said motion was remitted with another one exactly the same intended for another case pending against the defendant. The court set the motion for hearing and Francisco González Jr. represented the accused, with the express authority of the undersigned attorney, and submitted the motions on their merits. Subsequently the court overruled the motion, and inasmuch as it was not attached to the transcript of the evidence nor to the judgment roll, we moved the District Court of Humacao, through a verifiéd motion containing a statement of the case, to render nunc pro tunc the correct order on the motion in question, which was either misplaced, or the clerk, by mistake, had forgotten to file it in this prosecution for carrying a weapon, although he did file it in tip [353]*353other ease for breach of the peace. The court, on October 31, 1938, overruled the motion nunc pro tunc to file away the case. We now allege that the court erred in failing to decide on its merits this question that was duly raised within the term therefor; and that it was only because of the clerk’s oversight that it was not considered and decided in time.
“After the appeal had been filed, when the undersigned attorney was notified with a copy of the judgment roll, he noticed that there had been omited copy of the motion to file away the case presented by the defendant. Matters thus, a motion to correct the record was filed by defendant, which reads as follows:
“ ‘That the transcript in question is incorrect because it does not set -forth the acts and statements of the court prior to the trial.’
“ ‘That in order to duly defend himself on appeal, the defendant needs an order of the court to amend the record by attaching to the transcript of the evidence copy of all the statements, orders and resolutions, and, especially, copy of the ones rendered while the court was presided by the Hon. Francisco Gonzalez Fagundo.’
“That motion was overruled by the court acting on information given by the stenographer, without the defendant having had an opportunity to prove the facts alleged in his motion.
“In view of such a situation, and since the motion filed by the defendant praying that the ease be filed away was not mentioned in the transcript, the undersigned attorney filed in the District Court of Humacao the motion to file away the case nunc pro tunc, which was overruled on October 31, 1938, by an order that we consider erroneous because it injures the substantial rights of the defendant. It is clear that the court had power to grant the motion in question in accordance with paragraph 8, section 7 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Puerto Rico, which empowers the courts to inspect and correct their orders and resolutions to make them conform to the law and justice.
“Through the evidence that we shall place at the disposal of the Supreme Court it appears that the undersigned attorney, on August 23, 1937, sent to the clerk of the District Court of Humacao two motions, exactly alike, to be filed in cases Nos. 12685 and 12698; that the hearing of the motions was set for October 7, 1937, on which ■date attorney Francisco Gonzalez Jr. appeared in court and submitted the motions in question on their merits; that there does not appear in the record of 'case-12685,■ which, is- -the one -now ■ pending [354]*354before this Supreme Court, copy of the motion, but on the contrary there appears an order of the court, made on case 12698, which reads thus:
" 'ORDER. — Because we consider that the delay in setting this case for trial has been justified by the number of civil and criminal cases pending, this ease having been no exception to the development of the work of this court, the motion to file away the case is dismissed, and the case will remain, as it has up to now, waiting its turn for trial. — Humacao, P. R., September 21, 1937.— (signed) R. Arjona Siaca, District Judge.’
“We believe that the attendant circumstances justified the granting of the motion to file away the case nunc pro tunc, or the correction of the record, and that an order like the one above transcribed should have been rendered so that the Supreme Court could then take under advisement whether the motion to file away the case should have been granted.”

The district attorney maintains that the record does not offer grounds sufficient to argue the error. And that is so.

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Bluebook (online)
54 P.R. 351, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-lafont-prsupreme-1939.