People v. Chico
People v. Chico
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Emilio Chico has taken this appeal because he was con-, victed of voluntary manslaughter for having killed Benito Ortiz on December 22, 1931, at a place called Tras Talleres in Santurce, in this city of San Jnan.
He assigns several errors by reason of the reception of certain evidence for the prosecution which he claims was improperly admitted by the court; and also urges that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict of guilty rendered by the jury and the consequent sentence imposed upon him, as from the evidence introduced by the prosecuting attorney it appears that the appellant killed Ortiz in self-defense.
Two witnesses for the prosecution, Jenaro Méndez and Juan Vélez, saw the events to which this cause refers. The statements of both these witnesses are in accord to the effect that Benito Ortiz appeared at the store of Emilio Chico and provoked and insulted him with words which they repeated and which we are not going to reproduce here, but which were greatly abusive, offensive, and provocative; that Emilio Chico told him: “Listen, Benito, go away; I have four
The evidence for the defendant does not contradict that for the prosecution, and hence there was no conflict in the
In People v. Sutton, 17 P.R.R. 327, after copying sections 209, 210, and 211 of our Penal Code relating to the justification for a homicide, the following was said:
“Operating under substantially the same provisions the Supreme Court of California has sustained the following instructions:
“ ‘A person may repel force by force in the defense of person, property, or life, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise to commit a known misdemeanor or felony, or either, or to do great bodily injury to his person, and the danger which would justify the defendant in the act charged against him may be either real or apparent, and the jury are not to consider whether the defendant was in actual peril of his life or property, but only whether the indications were such as to induce a reasonable man to believe that he was in such peril of person or property. And if he so believed reasonably, and had sufficient cause so to believe, and committed the act complained of under such belief, even though it should appear that the deceased was not armed, you should acquit the defendant.’ (People v. Glover, 141 Cal., 233.)”
By applying that doctrine to the instant case, we reach the conclusion that the evidence shows that the appellant was justified in killing Benito Ortiz; for he did not provoke the quarrel which resulted in Ortiz’ death; he tried to avoid it, hut in spite of this he was battered by Ortiz, and used his revolver when Ortiz, after the battering, in a violent attitude attempted to reach the place where the appellant was between the counter and a stall of his small shop, which circumstances show that the appellant could be considered as facing an apparent danger of being seriously assaulted or of losing his life, even though he did not know whether or not Ortiz was armed. It was not a case of a mere suspicion of fear, for the insults, the provocation, the battering, and the
We think that there was manifest error in the weighing of the evidence by the jury, and therefore, the judgment of conviction based thereon must be reversed and the defendant-appellant discharged.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.