F.L.

VARGAS COLLEGE
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Criminal Law (Book 1)

Module No. 4
1st Semester, SY 2022-2023

FELONIES AND CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH AFFECTS CRIMINAL LIABILITY

Chapter Three. Circumstances which Mitigate Criminal Liability

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES
➢ Those circumstances which if present or attendant in the commission of a felony would
reduce the imposable penalty because it shows lesser traversity or criminality of the
offender.
➢ There is a lesser criminality on the part of the offender because the offender acted with
the diminution of any of the elements of voluntariness.
➢ There is a diminution on criminal intent, freedom of action or intelligence.
➢ In mitigating circumstances, the offender is of no absence of voluntariness but there is a
diminution in voluntariness because of diminution in any of the elements of voluntariness
– criminal intent, freedom of action or intelligence.

KINDS:
1. Ordinary - lowers the penalty to the minimum period.
2. Privileged - lowers the imposable penalty, whether divisible, by one or more degrees.
3. Specific - applies to a specific felony like concealment of dishonor in the case of abortion
by the pregnant woman herself. These circumstances can neither be ordinary or
privileged depending upon the effect of the penalty

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES?

a. Incomplete Justifying/Exempting Circumstances

➢ All the elements necessary to justify the act or to exempt the criminal liability in
their respective cases are not attendant.
➢ In case of incomplete self-defense, incomplete defense of a relative, incomplete
defense of a stranger, there must always be unlawful aggression in order for the
circumstance to mitigate.
➢ If only the element of unlawful aggression is present, the inc. self-defense should
be treated as an ordinary mitigating circumstance.
➢ If aside from unlawful aggression, another element but not all is present, it is to be
treated as a privileged mitigating circumstance.

b. Minority/Seniority
➢ If minority is not exempting, it is always a privileged mitigating circumstance.
➢ Seniority is ordinary mitigating circumstance.

c. Praeter Intentionem
➢ it is necessary that there must be a notable or notorious disparity between the
means employed and the resulting felony. That is, out of the means employed by
the offender, no one could have anticipated that the resulting felony would come.

d. Provocation
➢ Provocation - any unjust or immoral act or conduct on the part of the offended party
which is capable of inciting or exciting another.
➢ Elements:
1. it must be adequate to stir a person to commit a wrongful act.
2. it must be proportionate to the gravity of the crime.
3. the provocation must be immediate to the commission of the crime
e. Immediate vindication
➢ Elements:
1. That there be a grave offense to the one committing the felony, his spouse,
ascendants, descendants, legitimate, natural, or adopted brothers or sister,
or relatives by affinity within the same degree.
2. It requires that the said act or grave offense must be the proximate cause of
the commission of the crime.

f. Passion or Obfuscation
➢ Elements:
1. There be an act both unlawful and sufficient to produce passion and
obfuscation
2. Requires the act that would produce passion and obfuscation must not be
far removed from the commission of the crime by the considerable length of
time during which the offender might have recovered his normal equanimity
➢ Passion and obfuscation on the part of the accused must arise from a lawful
sentiments because an unlawful act was committed against him
➢ It is necessary that it must be done immediately because the law says the
commission of the act which produced the passion and obfuscation must not be
far removed from the commission of the crime by a considerable length of time.

g. Voluntary Surrender
➢ Elements:
1. That the offender had not actually arrested.
2. That the offender had voluntarily surrendered himself to a person in
authority or his agent.
3. Such surrender must be voluntary.

h. Voluntary Plea of Guilt

➢ Elements:
1. That guilt tendered is confessed spontaneously and unconditionally.
2. That he confesses guilt in open court that is before the court tried his case.
3. The confession that was made before the presentation of the evidence for
the prosecution.

i. Physical Defects
➢ Offender is deaf and dumb, blind or otherwise suffering some physical defect which
thus restricts his means of action, defense, or communications with his fellow
beings.
➢ It is necessary that there must be a connection, a relation between the physical
defect and the crime committed. It is necessary that the said physical defect must
have restricted his use of action, defense or communication with his fellow being.

j. Illness
➢ It is necessary that the said illness must diminish the exercise of the will-power of
the offender. But it must not deprive him of his consciousness of his act because
if it will deprive him of consciousness of his act, then it is exempting not merely
mitigating.

k. Analogous Circumstances
➢ Any other circumstance which is similar in nature from the first to ninth paragraph,
then it is also considered as a mitigating circumstance.