People v. Hernández Castro
People v. Hernández Castro
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Aracelio Hernández Castro, Domingo Quiles Nieves and Ismael Sánchez were found guilty on April 22, 1953 of the crimes of murder in the first degree and rape. They were sentenced on the following April 27 to life imprisonment and to serve an indeterminate sentence of from 10 to 20 years in the penitentiary, to be served concurrently. On May 1 they were transferred to the State Penitentiary. While they were confined therein — in the first week of confinement — they had certain writings prepared which they entitled “Motion of Appeal” and “Motion of Insolvency” which they delivered, according to the uncontroverted testimony given at the hearing set by this Court,
On June 8, 1953 the clerk of the Superior Court, Arecibo Part, sent a certification to the prosecuting attorney of this Court setting forth that defendants had appealed on May 4, 1953 from the sentence of life imprisonment and that they had not served the notice of appeal on the district attorney. Dismissal of the appeals was sought for lack of jurisdiction. “It appearing . . . that the notice of appeal was not served on the district attorney of the Superior Court, on June 30 we entered an order dismissing the same.”
On September 25, 1963 defendants filed a motion “in the nature of coram nobis” requesting, among other things, that the mandate sent to the Superior Court, Arecibo Part, be recalled and their notices of appeal be reinstated,
The failure to serve personal notice on the district attorney was also consented to by the State, since the intervention of the officer of the prison where they were confined made it his duty to send, or to require for remittance thereof to the: district attorney, a copy of the notice of appeal. People v. Flores, 77 P.R.R. 623 (1954).
In view of the foregoing, we need not discuss the other questions raised in the motion. The clerk shall direct that
Owing to the questions of fact raised which needed to be passed upon by the presentation of evidence, this Court motu proprio set a hearing and' ordered the summoning of those in charge of the records in the State Penitentiary and in the district jail of Arecibo and the remittance of the original record in the criminal case.
Although the motions were attached to the record, the trial court took no action thereon. We presume that the clerk did not refer them to the judge who intervened in the prosecution.
In view of the result which we have reached, we need not consider the effect of the dismissal ordered on the appeals taken from the judgments entered in the rape cases. As may he observed, both the motion for dismissal and the certification on which it was based refer only to the sentences of life imprisonment for the crime of murder in the first degree, but not to the sentence of from 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment for the crime of rape.
This jurisprudential rule was incorporated as Rule 195 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure of 1963, which reads:
“When the appellant is confined in a penal institution and takes an appeal in his own right, the appeal shall he taken by delivering the notice of appeal, within the term to appeal, to the officer having his custody. It shall be the duty of said officer to file immediately the notice of appeal with the clerk of the court where judgment was rendered. Upon receipt of the notice of appeal the clerk of the court shall notify the prosecuting attorney.”
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.