THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. SEVERINO VALDES Y GUILGAN, defendant-appellant; G.R. No. L-14128 December 10, 1918

 TOPIC: STAGES : ARSON 

case: frustrated

FACTS:

The house Mrs. Lewis was seen to have smoke issuing from its lower floor by their neighbor Mrs. Auckback. Mrs. Lewin ordered her servant Paulino Banal to look for the source, a piece of a jute sack and a rag were burning between a post of the house and a partition of the entresol. At that moment the defendant Severino Valdes was in the entresol, engaged in his work of cleaning while the other defendant is cleaning the horses. On the same morning of the occurrence, the police arrested the defendants, having been called for the purpose by telephone. Severino Valdes, after his arrest, according to the statement, drawn up in the police station, admitted before several policemen that it was he who had set the fire to the sack and the rag, which had been noticed on the date mentioned. and he also who had started the several other fires which had occurred in said house on previous days. That he had performed such acts through the inducement of the other prisoner, Hugo Labarro, for they felt resentment against, or had trouble with, their masters. That he acted as he did under the promise on Labarro's part to give him a peso for each such fire that he should start. Defendant Hugo Labarro was dismissed due to lack of evidence.

 

ISSUE:

Whether or not the accused has committed the crime of frustrated arson?

HELD:

Yes. The fact of setting fire to a jute sack and a rag, soaked with kerosene oil and placed beside an upright of the house and a partition of the entresol of the building, thus endangering the burning of the latter, constitutes the crime of frustrated arson of an inhabited house, on an occasion when some of its inmates were inside of it. The crime is classified only as frustrated arson, inasmuch as the defendant performed all the acts conceive to the burning of said house, but nevertheless., owing to causes independent of his will, the criminal act which he intended was not produced. The offense committed cannot be classified as consummated arson by the burning of said inhabited house, for the reason that no part of the building had yet commenced to burn, although, as the piece of sack and the rag, soaked in kerosene oil, had been placed near partition of the entresol, the partition might have started to burn, had the fire not been put out on time.

There is no extenuating or aggravating circumstance to be considered in a connection with the commission of the crime, and therefore the penalty of presidio mayor immediately inferior in degree to that specified in article 549 of the Penal Code, should be imposed in its medium degree.