Sophia Cadiz

Topic: Rights against Excessive Fines and Cruel and Unusual Punishment

People vs Echegaray
G.R. No. 117472, February 7, 1997

FACTS:

Leo Echegaray was charged and convicted for the crime of raping his 10-year
old daughter. Echegaray was sentenced with death penalty under RA No. 7659 or the
Death Penalty Law. On appeal, the accused-appellant challenged the constitutionality
of the Death Penalty Law as being severe and excessive, cruel and unusual punishment
in violation of the constitution. Echegaray invokes the rulings in the following US
cases:

(1) Furman vs Georgia – the US SC ruled that death penalty is cruel and
degrading. He also argues that for crimes where no death results from the offense,
the death penalty is a severe and excessive penalty in violation of Article III, Sec.
19(1) of the 1987 Constitution

(2) Coker vs Georgia – the US SC ruled that while rape deserves serious
punishment, it should not involve the taking of human life because in rape, life is not
over for the victim. Death penalty should only be imposed where the crime was
murder. Otherwise, it is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of Article III, Sec.
11 of the 1987 Constitution.

ISSUE: Whether the imposition of death penalty for the crime of rape is a cruel,
excessive, and inhuman punishment in violation of the constitutional proscription
against punishments of such nature.

RULING: NO. The imposition of death penalty for the crime of rape does not
constitute a cruel, unjust, excessive or unusual punishment.

In the case of Kemmler, it was held that punishments are cruel when they involve
inhuman and barbarous torture or a lingering death where it is more than
extinguishment of life. A punishment is degrading if it involves public humiliation.
Severity is not sufficient, but it must be disproportionate to the crime committed.
Excessiveness is measured by: 1) seriousness of the crime; 2) policy of the legislative;
3) perversity of the accused.

The SC ruled that the issue in Furman vs Georgia was not so much on the death
penalty itself but on the arbitrariness pervading the procedures by which death penalty
was imposed by the Jury. The reason the U.S. Supreme Court nullified all discretionary
death penalty statutes in Furman vs Georgia was because trial judges and juries had
uncontrolled discretion without any parameters, guidelines, or standards that
would lessen the intervention of personal biases, prejudices and discriminatory acts.

As for Coker, the cited rejection of the death penalty as a proper punishment for
the crime of rape does not apply in the Philippine context because RA 7659
legislated the death penalty for the crime of rape, and while rape did not involve the
taking of a life, death penalty is imposed for heinous crimes “committed
unforgivably execrable acts that have so deeply dehumanized a person” and “have
so caused irreparable and substantial injury to both their victim and the society
and a repetition of their acts would pose actual threat to the safety of individuals and
the survival of government,” and must therefore be permanently prevented from so
doing.

Therefore, the imposition of death penalty for a crime of rape did not constitute a cruel,
unjust, excessive or unusual punishment, and the Supplemental Motion for
Reconsideration was denied for lack of merit.

On whether death penalty is constitutional:

Citing the deliberations on the 1987 Constitution, while the Bill of Rights
Committee reached a consensus on the abolition of death penalty from the constitution,
the dissent argued that legislature should be allowed to determine whether the retention
or abolition of death penalty was for the common good, thus resulting in the following
wording of Art. III Sec. 9 (1): “Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel,
degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall death penalty be imposed,
unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter
provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion
perpetua.” Thus, the 1987 Constitution did not completely abolish the death
penalty, but merely suspended it.

What are heinous crimes?

RA 7659 sufficiently defined heinous crimes as crimes which are “grievous,

odious and hateful offenses and which, by reason of their inherent or manifest
wickedness, viciousness, atrocity and perversity are repugnant and outrageous to
the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a just, civilized and
ordered society.” They also include crimes which are despicable because life is
callously taken or the victim is treated as an animal or dehumanized.