People v. Colón Ortiz
People v. Colón Ortiz
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court..
Marcos A. Colón Ortiz was charged with having killed Pablo M. Vilella Saldana with malice aforethought and with the deliberate intent to murder him. It is alleged in the information that he assaulted and battered the deceased wilh a knife, inflicting a penetrating serious wound in the stomach, perforating among, other organs, the liver, in consequence-of which wound the victim died on the following day.
Subsequently, the district attorney modified his conclusions as to the characterization of the offense, reducing it to voluntary manslaughter. He stated that the ends of justice would be served by regarding the facts set forth in the information as constituting a crime of voluntary manslaughter. He based his decision on all the antecedents and circumstances of the case, and also on the evidence taken at the time of the preliminary investigation. The defendant states in his brief that he admitted the charge of voluntary manslaughter and that he pleaded guilty to that charge, relying on the mercy of the judges in cases like this, to save expense and labor to the People of Puerto Rico.
The prosecuting attorney considers that the motion of the defendant is well founded and argues that after the offense was characterized as voluntary manslaughter, the original accusation should not be taken into consideration. It is unnecessary to repeat the doctrine established in the cases of People v. Laureano, 34 P.R.R. 403, which has been explained and discussed in People v. Peña, 50 P.R.R. 822, and People v. Fernández, 50 P.R.R. 854.
In the present case we have that first the prosecuting attorney characterized the offense as murder. Afterwards ho changed his mind and stated that in accordance with the preliminary investigation and with the antecedents and circumstances of the case, the grade of the offense should be reduced in the furtherance of justice. We think that if the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offense justified the conclusions of the prosecuting attorney, he should have never filed an information charging the defendant with murder. The lower court sentenced the defendant to eight years’' imprisonment in the penitentiary, after hearing the statements of the district attorney.
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.