PROJECT JURISPRUDENCE

Children, regardless of their parents’ marital status, can now inherit from their grandparents and other direct ascendants by right of representation. In a Decision penned by Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, the Court En Banc reinterpreted Article 992 of the Civil Code, which prohibits nonmarital children from inheriting from their siblings who are marital children, as well as “relatives of [their] father or mother[.]” The Decision used the terms “marital” and “nonmarital” to replace the terms “legitimate” and “illegitimate” when referring to the children, as the latter terms are pejorative terms when used to describe children based on their parents’ marital status.  This case involves a woman who claims to be the nonmarital child of a man who died before she was born. After her alleged paternal grandfather died, she asserted her right to represent her deceased father—a marital child—in inheriting from her grandfather’s estate.  However, in previous cases, the Court had interpre

The Supreme Court in People v. Castillo, et al.[1] briefly discussed the two kinds of determination of probable cause, executive and judicial , to wit: x x x The executive determination of probable cause is one made during preliminary investigation . It is a function that properly pertains to the public prosecutor who is given a broad discretion to determine whether probable cause exists and to charge those whom he believes to have committed the crime as defined by law and thus should be held for trial. Otherwise stated, such official has the quasi-judicial authority to determine whether or not a criminal case must be filed in court. Whether or not that function has been correctly discharged by the public prosecutor, i.e., whether or not he has made a correct ascertainment of the existence of probable cause in a case, is a matter that the trial court itself does not and may not be compelled to pass upon. The judicial determination of probable cause, on the other hand, is one made by th

Article 6 of the Revised Penal Code states and defines the stages of a felony in the following manner: ART. 6. Consummated, frustrated, and attempted felonies. - Consummated felonies, as well as those which are frustrated and attempted, are punishable. A felony is consummated when all the elements necessary for the for its execution and accomplishment are present; and it is frustrated when the offender performs all the acts of execution which would produce the felony as a consequence but which, nevertheless, do not produce it by reason or causes independent of the will of the perpetrator. There is an attempt when the offender commences the commission of a felony directly by overt acts, and does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce the felony by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance. Based on the foregoing provision, the distinctions between frustrated and attempted felony are summarized as follows: 1.) In frustrated felony, t

A North Carolina man wrongly convicted of murder and imprisoned for 26 years has been granted a full pardon by the governor.  Dontae Sharpe had fought to prove his innocence since his 1994 arrest. He was released from prison in August 2019. "My family's name has been cleared," he told reporters on Friday. "It's a burden off of my shoulders and my family's shoulders." The news follows a BBC documentary on the miscarriage of justice in his case. Mr Sharpe's story highlighted how it can take years to get a full pardon even after a person is exonerated and wins their freedom. Governor Roy Cooper said in a statement announcing the pardon that he had carefully reviewed the case, and those who have been wrongly convicted like Mr Sharpe "deserve to have that injustice fully and publicly acknowledged". With the full pardon, Mr Sharpe will be able to file a request for compensation from the state. "My freedom still ain't complete as long as