Case Digest: Andres vs. People, G.R. No. 185860, June 5, 2009

                         Rule 115: Rights of the Accused  | Criminal Procedure

                        Right to be Informed of the Nature and Cause of the Accusation

Facts:

Antonio Andres and Rodolfo Duran were charged with the violation of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 6539 (Anti-Carnapping Act of 1992) for stealing a motorized Kawasaki tricycle worth P140,000.00.

The Regional Trial Court (RTC) found the petitioners guilty and sentenced them to seventeen (17) years and four (4) months to thirty (30) years of imprisonment.

Issue:

WON the CA gravely erred in imposing upon them the penalty of seventeen (17) years and four (4) months to thirty (30) years.

Held:  YES. 

In the Information charging the petitioners with violation of R.A. No. 6539, as amended, did not allege that the carnapping was committed by means of violence against, or intimidation of, any person, or force upon things. While these circumstances were proven at the trial, they cannot be appreciated because they were not alleged in the Information. 

Thus, the lower courts erred when they took these circumstances into account in imposing the penalty which they pegged at seventeen (17) years and four (4) months to thirty (30) years imprisonment. In the absence of these circumstances, the charge against the petitioners is confined to simple carnapping whose imposable penalty should have been imprisonment for not less than fourteen (14) years and eight (8) months, and not more than seventeen (17) years and four (4) months.

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