Constitutional Law: Article III, Section 19 Summary (De Leon)

SEC. 19. 

(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.


(2) The employment of physical, psychological, or degrading punishment against any prisoner or detainee or
the use of substandard or inadequate penal facilities under subhuman conditions shall be dealt with by law.

Right against excessive fines.

The question as to the amount of the fines that shall be imposed is one addressed to the sound discretion of the court. If it keeps within the limits of a statute, the fine cannot usually be held unreasonable.

 

Courts will be justified in declaring a fine prescribed by a statute excessive only when it is clearly so, considering the nature of the offense and the ability of the person punished to pay the fine. The prohibition against the imposition of excessive fines applies only to criminal prosecutions.

Right against cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment.

This right, as contra-distinguished from the right against the use of torture (Sec. 12[2].), can only be invoked after conviction for a crime.

To be prohibited by the Constitution, the punishment need only cruel, degrading, or inhuman. The Constitution refers primarily to physical punishment.

Forms of punishment.

It can be said that punishments are cruel and/or inhuman when they involve torture or lingering death such as burning alive, mutilation, starvation, drowning, and other barbarous punishments. They imply something more than the extinguishment of life.

Punishment is degrading when it brings shame and humiliation to the victim, or exposes him to contempt or ridicule, or lowers his dignity and self-respect as a human being.

(a) The punishment of death by hanging, electrocution, or musketry is not considered cruel within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution nor is it inhuman.

Lethal injection is a constitutional form of execution.

(b) Destierro or banishment from a certain locality as a punishment is neither cruel nor inhuman and is so valid. It is, in fact, less than imprisonment or confinement.

(c) The penalty of suspension or cancellation of a physician's license (for violation of the Generics Act [R.A. No. 6675].) is neither cruel, inhuman, nor degrading. It is not different from

the penalty of suspension or disbarment that the Supreme Court inflicts on lawyers and judges who misbehave or violate the laws and the Codes of Professional and Judicial Conduct. 

(d) The imposition of indefinite suspension from the practice of law on a lawyer "or contumacious acts or statements constituting a frontal assault upon the Supreme Court and through the Court, the entire judicial system, was held not cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment. The indefiniteness of the suspension far from being "cruel" or "degrading' or "inhuman" has the effect of placing, as it were, the key to the restoration of his rights and privileges as a lawyer in his own hands. That sanction has the effect of giving respondent the chance to purge himself in his own good time of his contempt and misconduct by acknowledging such misconduct, exhibiting appropriate repentance and demonstrating his willingness and capacity to live up to the exacting standards of conduct rightly demanded

from every member of the bar and officer of the courts.

Duration or amount of punishment.

The prohibition is generally aimed at the form or character of the punishment rather than its severity or harshness in respect of duration or amount.

It has been held that the disproportion between the penalty and the crime is an insufficient basis to declare the penalty unconstitutional on the ground that it is cruel and unusual. A penalty may be said to be "unusual" when it is previously unknown for a given offense. It should not be prohibited just because it is unusual.

It takes more than merely being harsh, excessive, out of proportion or severe for a penalty to be obnoxious to the Constitution. It does not, by that circumstance alone, make it cruel and inhuman. 

But punishments that are "fragrantly and plainly oppressive" or wholly disproportionate

to the nature of the offense as to shock the moral sense of the community may be both cruel and inhuman or at least violative of the due process guarantee which requires a reasonable correspondence between the degree of the offense and the degree of the penalty.

Thus, the penalty of life imprisonment or even death is not cruel nor inhuman when imposed for treason, parricide, murder and other heinous offenses especially when aggravating circumstances attended the commission; but it is cruel and inhuman if imposed for petty crimes.

Unreasonable application of valid punishments. 

The Constitution mandates that the employment of physical, psychological degrading punishment against any prisoner or detainee or the use of substandard or inadequate penal facilities under subhuman conditions should be dealt with by law. 

This contemplates the improper, unreasonable or inhuman application of penalties or punishments (Sec. 19[1].) on persons detained under valid laws.

Purpose and basis of the guarantee.

(1) The purpose of the guarantee, it has been said, is to eliminate many of the barbarous and uncivilized punishments formerly known the infliction of which would barbarize present civilization. Examples of such punishments are those inflicted at the whipping post or in the pillory, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, disemboweling, crucifixion, and

the like.

(2) The constitutional proscription was established on grounds of humanity which precludes the imposition of harsh penalties that public sentiments have regarded as an affront to reason or shocking to the conscience of men. It is consistent with the constitutional policy which states that "that the State values the dignity of every human person." (Art. Il, Sec. 10.)

Prohibition aimed at form or character of punishment.

(1) Remedy where the penalty imposed severe or excessive. 

The constitutional prohibition is generally aimed at the form or character prohibition rather than at its severity. In other words, the prohibition looks only to the form or nature of the penalty and not to the proportion between the penalty and the crime.

(2) Need for imposing severe penalty.

In view of the need to provide a more deterrent to crime, a penalty may, therefore, be valid although it is out of proportion to the offense. 

Whatever should be corrected as pernicious to the body politic, and how correction should be done, is a matter primarily addressed to the discretion of the legislative department, not of

the courts;

(3) Validity of penalty disproportionate to the crime. 

A penalty not normally proportionate to the offense may be imposed in some instances without violating the Constitution as, for example, where the offense has become so rampant as to require the adoption of a more effective deterrent, like the stealing of motor vehicles or coconuts which is punished by the Revised Penal Code as qualified theft or such crimes as assassinations, bombings, and robberies which are committed with frightening frequency and seeming impunity with the use of high-powered weapons, explosives or similar devices.

But, as elsewhere stated, where the degree of disproportion of the penalty to the offense committed is such as "to shock the moral sense of all reasonable men as to what is right and proper under the circumstances," the penalty would be violative of the prohibition.

However a fine is excessive and, therefore, prohibited when it is clearly out of proportion to the offense. 

Imposition of the death penalty.

Section 19 does not expressly declare the abolition of the death penalty. It merely says that the death penalty shall not be imposed unless Congress decides to reinstate it "for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes" in which case it shall apply only to such crimes subsequently committed. Death penalties already imposed upon the effectivity of the new· Constitution were automatically commuted to reclusion perpetua. (Sec. 19.)

Section 19(1) did not abolish the death penalty but merely suspended its imposition.

The intent of the framers of the Constitution was merely to consider the death penalty automatically reduced to reclusion perpetua.

Upon the ratification of the new Constitution, the death penalty may no longer be imposed and unless Congress provides otherwise, there is no longer an automatic review of a judgment of conviction. The review must be at the initiative of the accused. The intent of the framers of the Corporation was merely to counter the death penalty automatically reduced to reclusion perpetua. 

The Constitution does not define what "heinous crimes" are but they can be said to cover offenses that are exceedingly or flagrantly bad or evil or those committed with extreme cruelty as to shock the general moral sense, such as treason, parricide, drug-trafficking,

murder, robbery with homicide, r@pe with homicide, killing a person in stages, etc., especially if the crime is committed against children or defenseless people.

Before, the death sentence was carried out by putting the person under sentence by electrocution. This method was changed to lethal injection. R.A. No. 9346 (effective June 24, 2006) prohibits the imposition of the death penalty.

Reclusion perpetua vs. Life imprisonment

Reclusion perpetua is not synonymous or interchangeable with "life imprisonment."

While the latter may appear to be the English translation of the former, in reality, it goes

deeper than that. The former "entails imprisonment for at least 30 years after which the

convict becomes eligible for pardon, although the maximum period thereof shall in no

case exceed 40 years; it also carries with it accessory penalties, namely, perpetual special

disqualification, etc. provided in Article 4.1 of the Revised Penal Code. It is not the same

as life imprisonment which, for one thing, does not carry with it any accessory penalty

and for another, does not appear to have any definite extent or duration.

The former is prescribed under the Revised Penal Code, while the latter is invariably imposed for serious offenses which are not penalized by the Revised Penal Code but by special Jaws.

Therefore, the latter should not be used in lieu of or as a substitute for the former.

Section 2 of the Indeterminate Sentence Law provides that the Act (i.e., its benefits) shall not apply to persons convicted of offenses punished with death penalty or life imprisonment. The term "life imprisonment" has been interpreted to include reclusion perpetua.

The Constitution speaks of the penalty of reclusion perpetua at least three (3) times: Section 13 (Bail) and Section 19 of Article Ill, and Section 5(2, d) of Article VIII in connection with cases over which the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction. The duration of reclusion perpetua has been increased from 20 years and one (1) day to 40 years by R.A. No. 7659.

R.A. No. 7659

R.A. No. 7659 (effective Dec. 31, 1993.) restored the death penalty on certain heinous crimes amending for the purpose the Revised Penal Code and other special laws.

The 13 crimes classified as heinous and punishable by death under the Act are 

1) Treason,

2) Qualified piracy, 

3) Qualified bribery, 

4) Murder, 

5) Parricide,

6) Infanticide, 

7) Kidnapping and serious illegal detention,

8) Robbery with violence or intimidation of persons, 

9) Destructive arson,

10) R@pe with homicide or with any specified attendant circumstances, 

11) Crime of plunder, 

12) Importation, manufacture, possession, sale, etc., of prohibited or regulated drugs, and 

13) Carnapping with homicide or r@pe.

R.A. No. 9346

In prescribing the imposition of death penalty, the penalty of reclusion perpetua without eligibility for parole should instead be imposed. The law unequivocally bars the application of the death penalty, as well as repeals all such statutory provisions requiring the application of

the death penalty. It only prohibits the imposition of the death penalty but did not affect the corresponding pecuniary or civil liabilities.

Arguments against tire penalty. 

The proponents of the abolition of the death penalty are of the opinion that:

(a) It is cruel and inhuman because its imposition traumatizes not only the convict but also the members of his family;

(b) It has never been shown to have a special deterrent effect on criminality;

(c) It deprives the convict of a chance for rehabilitation and reformation, death being irreversible;

(d) There is always a possibility of error in condemning a person to death; and

(e) The State has no right to deprive a person of his life;

God is the giver of life and only He can take it.

Arguments in Javor of the penalty. 

Those who advocate the retention of death penalty say:

(a) It is not cruel and inhuman because the manner by which it is executed (e.g., by electrocution, gas chamber, or lethal injection) does not involve physical or mental pain nor unnecessary physical or mental suffering, and it is imposed only for heinous crimes;

(b) It discourages others from committing heinous crimes, and its abolition will result to the increase of the crime rate;

(c) A convict by his own acts, has forfeited his right to life and shown his moral incapability to be rehabilitated and reformed;

(d) Its imposition is filled with numerous legal safeguards, manifesting society's reluctance to take human life; and

(e) The State has the absolute right to take the life of a person who has proved himself a great menace to society by way of self-defense and as an example and warning to others.

The State derives its authority ultimately from God.

Treatment of detention prisoners.

Section 19(2) prohibits confinement of any prisoner which may amount to cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment prohibited under Section 19(1) and commands Congress to pass the necessary law to deal with the matter.

Such law may impose the necessary sanction upon those violating the constitutional prohibition. (see Sec. 12[4].)

The Commission on Human Rights is vested by the Constitution with visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities to insure its observance. (Art. XIII, Sec. 18[4].)