Case Digest: US vs Laranja, 21 Phil 500, G.R. No. 6789

US vs Laranja, 21 Phil 500 (1912), G.R. No. 6789, February 16, 1912

Subject: Basic Legal Ethics

FACTS

Laranja and four or five companions went to the house of one Candoy on the night of November 1910. These men arrived at the house on the night and together with the people living in said house, began singing and drinking. A quarrel and fight ensued which resulted in the death of Candoy and Ando. Criminal complaints were filed before the CFI against this appellants and a certain Iyon, charged them with the crime of homicide. The latter was tried first. When the case against the appellant was called, an agreement with reference to admitting the testimony taken in the case against Iyon was entered into by counsel for the defendant and the provincial fiscal.

Attorney Lozano’s position in assisting the prosecution in the case against Iyon was that of showing that Iyon was the guilty party and that the killing of Ando was not justifiable. In defending Calixto, it was the duty of attorney, to show, if it could be done, that Candoy was the aggressor and not Calixto. The testimony which was used to convict Iyon was incorporated by stipulation of the parties bodily into the case against this appellant.

ISSUE

Whether or not Attorney de officio, Mr. Lozano was disqualified from representing the appellant in the trial court.

RULING

No.

Court ruled that “It is said the counsel for respondent was counsel assigned to him by the court and may not have been counsel of his choice. We do not know how the fact was, but we know it is customary to allow the respondent to choose for himself. But however that may be, the counsel acted for the respondent without objection, and without complaint that he did not do the best he could for him”.

In this case, the record in the Iyon case was admitted as evidence on the express stipulation of the parties. The court below had no discretion. To hold that that evidence was inadmissible puts the trial court in the position described by Judge Cooley in the quotation above. If the court admitted the evidence it was subject, according to the theory of counsel for the appellant, to be charged with violating the defendant’s constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him and of admitting incompetent evidence. If the court had excluded such evidence, the defendant would have been entitled to have the conviction set aside for error involved in excluding from the case evidence whose admissibility was agreed upon by all, and which the defendant himself, through his counsel, expressly asked to have admitted as essential to his proper defense. In other words, the court would be reversed if it did and reversed if it did not.