People v. Matos

26 P.R. 520
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedJuly 15, 1918
DocketNo. 1113
StatusPublished

This text of 26 P.R. 520 (People v. Matos) 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. Matos, 26 P.R. 520 (prsupreme 1918).

Opinion

Me. Justice Aldeey

delivered tlie opinion of tlie court.

Ramón Matos and Domingo Matos were charged in the District Court of Ponce with the crime of murder in the first degree. They were convicted and sentenced to death, and appealed from that judgment to this court. Domingo Matos died during the pendency of the appeal. In this appeal Ramón Matos pleads (1) that the lower court erred in overruling his motion to dismiss the prosecution on the ground that more than 120 days elapsed between the filing of the information hy the district attorney and the trial, as he was entitled to such dismissal under clause 2 of section 448 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, reading as follows:

“Sec. 448. — The court, unless good cause to the contrary is shown, shall order the prosecution to be dismissed in the following cases:
‘ < p ■>::= # •#
“2. If a defendant, whose trial has not been postponed upon his application, is not brought to trial within one hundred and twenty days after the filing of the information.”

The information in this case was filed hy the district at/-torney on September 12, 1915, and the trial was begun on March 9, 1916, more than 120 clays having elapsed, therefore, between the two acts. Let us see whether the lower court was justified in overruling the motion.

The motion of the attorney for dismissal in this case was made too late, because the jury had already been impaneled and sworn. In the case of People v. Ayala, 19 P. R. R. 888, we held that if such motion were made after the trial, or even after the jury had been impaneled, then, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of California, that right of the accused may be considered as waived by implication; and in the case of People v. Hawkings, 127 Cal. 372, cited in the said case, this question was finally disposed of as follows:

“There is no duty incumbent on the court to order dismissal un[522]*522der section 1382 unless the defendant demands it * * *; so that the right, like other statutory privileges of the accused which do not affect the jurisdiction of the court, may be waived. It is well settled that the impaneling of the jury is part of a trial (Silcox v. Lang, 78 Cal. 118); the legal jeopardy of the defendant has attached when a jury has been ‘charged with his deliverance,’ and the jury stands thus charged when its members have been impaneled and sworn. (Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 6th ed., 399.) When, therefore, the defendant here moved for dismissal he had been ‘brought to trial,’ and was upon trial, without previous objection that the limit of sixty days had expired. If he could then raise the objection for the first time, he could raise it as well on the announcement of the verdict, or at any other stage of the trial. We are satisfied that the statute never was designed for such uses, and must hold that defendant waived its benefit (if he was entitled thereto) by failure to claim it in proper season. The following cases tend to sustain this conclusion: People v. Bennett, 114 Cal. 56, 58; Polack v. Gurnee, 66 Cal. 266; People v. Romero, 18 Cal. 89; People v. Johnson, 104 Cal. 418.”

The doctrine quoted would be sufficient to- justify this court in refusing to consider the said assignment of error, but inasmuch as the crime charged is of such a serious nature as murder with its attendant penalty, we wish to say that there was good cause for the delay in bringing the defendants to trial, for the case was set for trial within the 120 days prescribed by the statute; but a few days before the day set the attorney for the defense moved for the delivery to him of a pair of trousers and a stone which the district attorney had taken possession of in another investigation in the same case in order that the stains thereon might be examined in a chemical laboratory, and by reason of this motion the court ordered that these articles, another stone and a club should be sent to the chemical laboratory at San Juan with instructions that the examination be made before the day set for the trial, which was nearly a month distant. A few days before the day set for the trial the district attorney moved the court for a continuance because, according to an affidavit of [523]*523the chemist charged with the examination of the stains, lie was unable to conclude the examination before the day set for the trial, whereupon the court, after hearing the parties and taking into consideration the fact that the chemical examination was being made on motion of the defense and was important in the case, postponed the trial in the hope that the parties would he prepared to produce all their evidence in the interest of justice. It seems to us that these reasons are sufficient to justify the delay, which was to the advantage of the accused, since it was on their motion that the stone and trousers were sent to the chemical laboratory for the examination whose delay caused the postponement of the trial: and although it was the district attorney who moved for a continuance because the examination in which the defense was interested had not been made, there is no doubt that he did so in furtherance of the better administration of justice. Moreover, the order of the court continuing the trial from the day set therefor, like all judicial decisions, is presumed to be just and therefore it was incumbent upon the accused to make a showing in their motion for dismissal of the reasons why the order postponing the trial was without good cause. People v. París, 25 P. R. R. 103.

While the defendants contend that the delay in the trial weakened their case because an important witness in their behalf died between the two dates set for the trial and they had to submit his testimony to the jury through the mouths of other persons, which in their opinion did. not carry the same weight as if given directly, yet the question to be decided is not whether they were prejudiced by the continuance, but whether there was just cause for the postponement ordered by the court, and we have seen already that there was.

On the day of the trial the defense pleaded that the facts set up in the information did not constitute a crime because it did not clearly establish the jurisdiction of the court, and [524]*524they now contend that the adverse ruling on that plea was error on the part of the lower court which warrants the reversal of the judgment of conviction, because the facts recited do not charge the crime of murder in the first degree and because the court had no jurisdiction of the case.

The information in this case is for the crime of murder in the first degree and charges that in Guánica, within the judicial district of Ponce, the defendants unlawfully and wil-fully, with malice aforethought and with resolute intent to Mil Nicolás Quiñones, an old man, .for the purpose of committing robbery from his person, lay in wait and treacherously attacked said Quiñones with clubs, inflicting numerous blows which produced his immediate death.

In support of said assignment of error the defense contends that in the form in which the information is drawn up this fact would not constitute murder in the first degree were it not that the information alleges that the murder was committed for the purpose of robbery, but that the.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

People v. Hawkins
59 P. 697 (California Supreme Court, 1899)
People v. Romero
18 Cal. 89 (California Supreme Court, 1861)
Polack v. Gurnee
5 P. 229 (California Supreme Court, 1884)
Silcox v. Lang
20 P. 297 (California Supreme Court, 1889)
People v. Johnson
38 P. 91 (California Supreme Court, 1894)
People v. Bennett
45 P. 1013 (California Supreme Court, 1896)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
26 P.R. 520, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-matos-prsupreme-1918.