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THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. PROTASIO EDUAVE, defendant-appellant

G.R. No. 12155. February 2, 1917

FACTS:

The defendant Protasio Eduave, who was the querido of the victim’s mother and was living with
her at the time the crime here charged was committed, was incensed at the victim for the charging
him criminally before the local officials with having raped her and with being the cause of her
pregnancy. The accused rushed upon the victim suddenly and struck her from behind, in part at
least, with a sharp bolo, producing a frightful gash in the lumbar region and slightly to the side
eight and one-half inches long and two inches deep, severing all of the muscles and tissues of that
part. Believing that he had killed the victim, he threw the body into the bushes, gave himself up
and declared that he had killed the victim.

ISSUE:

What stage of the crime of murder was committed by the defendant Eduave?

RULING:

The defendant is guilty of frustrated murder as there was an intent to kill, there was use of a
deadly weapon and the blow was directed towards a vital part of the body. There was also alevosia
(act of deliberate betrayal or treachery) to qualify the crime as murder if death had resulted.

The crime cannot be attempted murder. The defendant has performed all of the acts which should
have resulted in the consummated crime but did not produce it by reason beyond his control

The essential element which distinguishes attempted from frustrated felony is that, in the latter,
there is no intervention of a foreign or extraneous cause or agency between the beginning of the
commission of the crime and the moment when all of the acts have been performed which should
result in the consummated crime; while in the former there is such intervention and the offender
does not arrive at the point of performing all of the acts which should produce the crime. He is
stopped short of that point by same cause apart from his from his voluntary desistance.