People v. Moctezuma Velázquez
People v. Moctezuma Velázquez
Opinion of the Court
Appellant haying been convicted by a jury of the crime of murder in the second degree, and by the court without a jury, for violating § 4 of the Weapons Law, appealed from the sentences which punished him to serve from ten (10) to fifteen (15) years in the penitentiary, and one (1) year in jail respectively, assigning the commission of the following three errors:. (1) comments and criticisms of the judge during the cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution which deprived him of an impartial trial; (2) improper comments of the prosecuting.attorney, and (3) erroneous instruction of the judge to the jury to the effect that “for the self-defense to be duly established it is necessary that defendant had not had any participation whatsoever in the dispute which gave rise to the death.”
The evidence for the prosecution showed, in synthesis, that on February 6, 1968, at about some minutes past seven in the evening, the defendant-appellant went to the business of Felipe Velázquez Ramos, located at Ward Tejas of Yabu-
The defendant presented evidence to establish the self-defense. His account of the facts, not believed by the jury, was to the effect that he went to Velázquez’ business to change
We have examined carefully the transcript of evidence. The “multiple little incidents” as described by defendant-appellant himself are at pages 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 51, 53, 57, 58, 67, 68 and 75 of the transcript of evidence.
The intervention of the judge on multiple occasions was due to the form in which appellant’s counsel conducted the cross-examination. He asked confusing questions which not even the judge himself understood, he did not allow the witness to answer his questions, interrupting him unnecessarily and above all he kept repeating one question and another and another about facts already answered more than once, to the point that at the end, when the witness gave an answer, the judge said “answered”. Had the judge not intervened, many details in the answers of the witnesses would not have been clarified or would have gone to the jury in a confused manner. On the other hand, the timely intervention of the judge avoided that the trial be prolonged more than it unnecessarily was. See People v. Cardona, 57 P.R.R. 682 (1940); People v. Camacho, 69 P.R.R. 332 (1948); People v. Vázquez, 68 P.R.R. 62 (1948); People v. Román, 42 P.R.R. 620 (1931); People v. Gómez, 45 P.R.R. 787 (1933). The
Neither did the prosecuting attorney make any comment whatsoever which would injure the substantial rights of defendant-appellant. The defendant had testified that after wounding Lupe Torres he went to sleep and on the following day he went to work. The prosecuting attorney then asked him whether the fact of knowing that there was a person whom he had injured did not matter to him. Objection was raised to that question and it was upheld by the court. Then the prosecuting attorney said: “That is all with the witness, Your Honor, the witness himself said it.” At that time the comment was untimely. However, in his opening statement to the jury, a proceeding under an information for murder in the first degree being involved, with all the elements which it contains, the prosecuting attorney could argue in regard to the attitude assumed by appellant after having mortally injured a human being. Consequently, a permissible comment by the prosecuting attorney, but uttered at the wrong time, does not injure the rights of the defendant.
The contention about the instruction to the effect that in claiming self-defense “it is necessary that the person requesting the benefit of self-defense not be to blame for the fight to which he was driven and as a result of which another person died . . .” has been already decided against appellant. People v. Román Marrero, 96 P.R.R. 777 (1968); People v. Marcelino Hernández Maldonado, per curiam opinion of June 9, 1964. (Advanced Sheet Bar Asso. 1964-112.)
The judgments appealed from will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.