BASIC CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

Culled from the Book of Atty. Antonio R. Bautista

CHAPTER I
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
The law on criminal procedure is the law governing the interaction between
the individual and the States authority in the administration of criminal
justice.
Statutory Enactments which Make Up Law of Criminal Procedure
1. R.A. No. 7438 providing for the rights of a person arrested, detained or
under custodial investigation;
2. Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980 (B.P. Blg. 129) defining the criminal
jurisdiction of our courts; and
3. R.A. No. 6981, the Witness Protection Security and Benefit Act
CHAPTER II
POLICE INVESTIGATION
The first encounter of the individual with the States criminal authority is the
police investigation stage. It is at this stage where persons, either suspects
or not, may be interrogated by the police or asked to give statements to
assist the police in discovering the commission of an offense and its probable
perpetrators.
Who May Investigate for Crime
Police Authorities persons generally empowered to conduct investigation
for crimes.
In the Philippines, these police authorities with broad power to conduct
criminal investigation are the members of the PNP and members of the
NBI. A significant distinction between the two lies in their access to
records. NBI Investigators are expressly given access to all public
records and, upon authority of the President of the Philippines in the
exercise of his visitorial powers, to records of private parties and
concerns. While given no such express power, the PNP may request NBI
assistance in the investigation or detection of crimes.
Other law enforcement officers may be vested by special law with power
to investigate certain types of offenses. For instance, officers of the
Bureau of Customs, including security and secret service agents and
patrol officers and guards of the Bureau of Customs, are expressly
authorized to effect searches, seizures and arrests for enforcement of
tariff and customs laws.
Limitations on State Criminal Authority in a Non-Custodical Situation
1. Right against unreasonable searches and seizures
2. Right to privacy of communication
3. Right against arrest without probable cause
4. Right against arbitrary detention
CARMELITA MHAY JUANZON
Juris Doctor
PUP-College of Law, 2014

BASIC CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

Culled from the Book of Atty. Antonio R. Bautista
Rights of a Person Arrested, Detained or Under Police Custody
Even if the person is not put under investigation, so long as he is arrested,
detained or under police custody, he is entitled to the following additional
rights:
1. The right not to be subjected to torture, force, threat, intimidation, or any
other means which vitiate the free will;
2. The right not to be put in secret detention places, solitary, in
communicado or other similar forms of detention; and
3. The right not to be subjected to physical, psychological or degrading
treatment or the use of sub-standard or inadequate or sub-human
detention facilities.
The Miranda Rights
In 1966, the Supreme Court of the US promulgated its landmark decision in
Miranda vs. Arizona, recognizing what it deemed to be the inherently
coercive nature of police custodial interrogation. Miranda mandated that a
person under police custody may not be interrogated until he has been given
the following warnings:
1. That he has the right to remain silent;
2. That he has the right to be told that anything that he says can and will be
used against him in court; and
3. That he has the right to have counsel of his choice or appointed for him,
to be present throughout the interrogation.
Miranda regarded a person to be under custodial interrogation when his
freedom of action has been restricted in any significant way. But our
statute on the matter has defined custodial investigation to include the
practice of issuing an invitation to a person who is investigated in
connection with an offense he is suspected to have committed. At all
events, the investigation should be by State authorities, and not by
private parties.
Thus, where a person was investigated by an administrative panel of his
employer he is not entitled to any Miranda warnings because he was not
then under investigation for the commission of an offense nor in-custody
or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.
A police line-up is not considered to be part of custodial investigation and
so the right to counsel cannot be invoked at this stage as the person
included in the line-up is not being interrogated or asked to give any
statement in the course of the line-up.
However, a pre-trial identification, specially when accompanied by a reenactment, may be suggestive as to amount to custodial interrogation so
that the Miranda rights would thence accrue.
A statement or confession made under custodial interrogation without the
Miranda warnings is presumptively involuntary. In order for it to be
admitted into evidence the prosecution must establish preliminarily that
the warnings were given or that the right to the warnings was validly
waived, which requires that a waiver of the Miranda rights must be in
writing and that it be made in the presence of counsel.
CARMELITA MHAY JUANZON
Juris Doctor
PUP-College of Law, 2014

BASIC CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

Culled from the Book of Atty. Antonio R. Bautista

Where a statement or confession was obtained from a person under

custodial interrogation who was not given the Miranda warnings, other
evidence derived from these presumptively involuntary statements will
also be inadmissible under the derivative evidence rule also known as
the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine. Thus, if a confession alerts the
police to the whereabouts of the murder weapon the derivative evidence
rule prohibits the prosecution from using the weapon as evidence. The
rationale for this rule was explained thus: the essence of a provision
forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely
evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall
not be used at all.
CHAPTER III
ARREST

An individuals liberty of movement or freedom from physical restraint is well

guaranteed by the Constitution. For one, no person may be deprived of
liberty without due process of law. The right to bail and the provision against
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus reinforce this guarantee.
Implicit, therefore, in our system of ordered liberty is the freedom of every
individual from unlawful arrest or detention. The law on arrest determines
when such lawful arrest or detention is lawful.
Arrest, Meaning and Purpose
Arrest is the taking of a person into custody in order that he may be bound to
answer for the commission of an offense.
Elements of Arrest
1. The intention to effect an arrest under a real or pretended authority;
2. An actual or constructive detention of the person to be arrested by a
person having present power to control the person arrested;
3. A communication by the arresting officer to the person being arrested of
his intention then and there to effect an arrest; and
4. An understanding by the person being arrested that it is the officers
intention then and there to arrest and detain him.
How Arrest Effected
An arrest is made by an actual restraint of a person to be arrested, or by his
submission to the custody of the person making the arrest. No violence or
unnecessary force shall be used in making an arrest. The person arrested
shall not be subject to a greater restraint than is necessary for his detention.

CARMELITA MHAY JUANZON

Juris Doctor
PUP-College of Law, 2014