Constitutional Law 1

154 In Re De Villa
Commander-in-Chief

Court Supreme Court En Banc

Citation G.R. No. 158802
Date 17 November 2004
Petitioner Reynaldo De Villa
Respondent The Director, New Bilibid Prisons
Ponente YNARES-SANTIAGO
Relevant topic The writ of habeas corpus applies to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by
which a person has been deprived of his liberty, or by which the rightful custody of
any person has been withheld from the person entitled thereto. Issuance of the writ
necessitates that a person be illegally deprived of his liberty. Any restraint which
will preclude freedom of action is sufficient.

However, if an individual's liberty is restrained via some legal process, the writ of
habeas corpus is unavailing. Concomitant to this principle, the writ of habeas
corpus cannot be used to directly assail a judgment rendered by a competent court
or tribunal which, having duly acquired jurisdiction, was not deprived or ousted of
this jurisdiction through some anomaly in the conduct of the proceedings.
Prepared by:

FACTS:

- The case is a petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus under Rule 102 of the Rues of
Court.

- Petitioner, joined by his son, petitioner-relator June de Villa, seeks a two-fold relief:

1. That respondent Director of Prisons justify the basis for the imprisonment of petitioner Reynaldo
de Villa; and
2. That petitioner be granted a new trial.

9 January 1995 Aileen Mendoza charged petitioner Reynaldo de Villa with rape before the RTC of
Pasig City. The rape occurred in April 1994, when Mendoa was aged 12 years and 10
months. The rape allegedly resulted in Aileen’s pregnancy.

1 February 2001 The Court upheld the ruling of the RTC and found the Petitioner guilty of the rape of
Aileen Mendoza, his niece by affinity, and was sentenced to suffer the penalty of
reclusion perpetua, and ordered to pay the offended party, among others, support for
Leahlyn Corales Mendoza, the putative child born of the rape.

- Petitioner-relator managed to obtain a sample of Leahlyn’s saliva, and also gathered samples from
Reynaldo de Villa and four of his grandchildren. DNA test conducted by the NBI showed that
Reynaldo could not have sired any of the children whose samples were tested, due to the absence
of a match between the pertinent genetic markers in petitioner’s sample and those of any of the
other sampes, including Leahlyn’s.

- The instant petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus argues as follows:

1. DNA analysis on paternity shows conclusively that petitioner de Villa is not the father of Leahlyn
Mendoza; his conviction for rape, based on the fact that Leahlyn was sired as a result of the
alleged rape, cannot stand and must be set aside.

2. A new trial to consider newly discovered evidence is proper and may be order by the Court in
view of the results of the DNA tests conducted.

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Constitutional Law 1
154 In Re De Villa
Commander-in-Chief

ISSUE – HELD – RATIO:

ISSUE #1 HELD
Whether or not the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus is the proper remedy for the release of NO
an individual already convicted and serving sentence by virtue of a final and executory judgment.

RATIO:

The writ of habeas corpus applies to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by which a person has
been deprived of his liberty, or by which the rightful custody of any person has been withheld from the
person entitled thereto. Issuance of the writ necessitates that a person be illegally deprived of his liberty.
Any restraint which will preclude freedom of action is sufficient.

The most basic criterion for the issuance of the writ, therefore, is that the individual seeking such relief be
illegally deprived of his freedom of movement or placed under some form of illegal restraint. If an
individual's liberty is restrained via some legal process, the writ of habeas corpus is unavailing.
Concomitant to this principle, the writ of habeas corpus cannot be used to directly assail a judgment
rendered by a competent court or tribunal which, having duly acquired jurisdiction, was not
deprived or ousted of this jurisdiction through some anomaly in the conduct of the proceedings.

Thus, in the case of Chavez v. Court of Appeals, the writ of habeas corpus was held to be available where
an accused was deprived of the constitutional right against self-incrimination. A defect so pronounced as
the denial of an accused's constitutional rights results in the absence or loss of jurisdiction, and therefore
invalidates the trial and the consequent conviction of the accused. That void judgment of conviction may be
challenged by collateral attack, which precisely is the function of habeas corpus.

In Gumabon v. Director of the Bureau of Prisons, this Court ruled that, once a deprivation of a constitutional
right is shown to exist, the court that rendered the judgment is deemed ousted of jurisdiction and habeas
corpus is the appropriate remedy to assail the legality of the detention.

In the recent case of Calvan v. Court of Appeals, the Court summarized the scope of review allowable in a
petition for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus. The Court ruled that the writ of habeas corpus,
although not designed to interrupt the orderly administration of justice, can be invoked by the attendance of
a special circumstance that requires immediate action. In such situations, the inquiry on a writ of habeas
corpus would be addressed, not to errors committed by a court within its jurisdiction, but to the
question of whether the proceeding or judgment under which a person has been restrained is a
complete nullity. It is the nullity of an assailed judgment of conviction which makes it susceptible to
collateral attack through the filing of a petition for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus.

Upon a perusal of the records not merely of this case but of People v. de Villa, the Court found that the
remedy of the writ of habeas corpus is unavailing.

The denial of a constitutional right has not been alleged by petitioner. A careful scrutiny of the
records does not reveal any constitutional right of which the petitioner was unduly deprived.

While in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, the grant of a writ of habeas corpus is aimed at
testing a claim that a defendant was denied effective aid of counsel, the same does not apply in the case at
bar. In the case at bar, while petitioner’s counsel suddenly and inexplicably withdrew his appearance as
council, giving the sole explanation that he was “leaving for the US for an indefinite period of time by virtue
of a petition filed in his favor, the Court did not find that there was such negligence committed by such
counsel as to amount to a denial of a constitutional right. There is likewise no showing that the proceedings
were tainted with any other jurisdictional defect.

In fine, the Court found that petitioner invokes the remedy of the petition for a writ of habeas corpus to seek
a re-examination of the records of People v. de Villa, without asserting any legal grounds therefor. For all

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154 In Re De Villa
Commander-in-Chief

intents and purposes, petitioner seeks a reevaluation of the evidentiary basis for his conviction. The Court
was being asked to reexamine the weight and sufficiency of the evidence in this case, not on its own, but in
light of the new DNA evidence that the petitioner seeks to present to the Court. This relief is outside the
scope of a habeas corpus petition. The petition for habeas corpus must, therefore, fail.

ISSUE #2 HELD
Whether or not granting a new trial under the same factual scenario is proper. NO

RATIO:

It must be stressed that the issue of Leahlyn Mendoza's paternity is not central to the issue of petitioner's
guilt or innocence. The rape of the victim Aileen Mendoza is an entirely different question, separate and
distinct from the question of the father of her child.

In the case of People v. Alberio, the Court ruled that the fact or not of the victim's pregnancy and resultant
childbirth are irrelevant in determining whether or not she was raped. Pregnancy is not an essential
element of the crime of rape. Whether the child which the victim bore was fathered by the purported rapist,
or by some unknown individual, is of no moment in determining an individual's guilt.

The fact of the child's paternity is now in issue, centrally relevant to the civil award of child support. It is only
tangentially related to the issue of petitioner's guilt. However, if it can be conclusively determined that the
petitioner did not sire Leahlyn Mendoza, this may cast the shadow of reasonable doubt, and allow the
acquittal of the petitioner on this basis.

A motion for new trial, under the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, is available only for a limited period
of time, and for very limited grounds. Under Section 1, Rule 121, of the Revised Rules of Criminal
Procedure, a motion for new trial may be filed at any time before a judgment of conviction becomes final,
that is, within fifteen (15) days from its promulgation or notice. Upon finality of the judgment, therefore, a
motion for new trial is no longer an available remedy. Section 2 of Rule 121 enumerates the grounds for a
new trial:

SEC. 2. Grounds for a new trial. — The court shall grant a new trial on any of the following grounds:

(a) That errors of law or irregularities prejudicial to the substantial rights of the accused have been
committed during the trial;

(b) That new and material evidence has been discovered which the accused could not with
reasonable diligence have discovered and produced at the trial and which if introduced and
admitted would probably change the judgment.

In the case at bar, petitioner anchors his plea on the basis of purportedly "newly-discovered evidence", i.e.,
the DNA test subsequently conducted, allegedly excluding petitioner from the child purportedly fathered as
a result of the rape.

The decision sought to be reviewed in this petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus has
long attained finality, and entry of judgment was made as far back as January 16, 2002. Moreover,
upon an examination of the evidence presented by the petitioner, we do not find that the DNA
evidence falls within the statutory or jurisprudential definition of "newly-discovered evidence".

A motion for new trial based on newly-discovered evidence may be granted only if the following requisites
are met:
(a) That the evidence was discovered after trial;

(b) That said evidence could not have been discovered and produced at the trial even with the
exercise of reasonable diligence;
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154 In Re De Villa
Commander-in-Chief

(c) That it is material, not merely cumulative, corroborative or impeaching; and

(d) That the evidence is of such weight that, if admitted, it would probably change the judgment.

It is essential that the offering party exercised reasonable diligence in seeking to locate the evidence before
or during trial but nonetheless failed to secure it.

In this instance, although the DNA evidence was undoubtedly discovered after the trial, the Court
nonetheless found that it does not meet the criteria for "newly-discovered evidence" that would merit a new
trial. Such evidence disproving paternity could have been discovered and produced at trial with the exercise
of reasonable diligence.

RULING:

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the instant petition for habeas corpus and new trial is DISMISSED
for lack of merit.

CARPIO, J., concurring.

While the remedies of habeas corpus and new trial are thus unavailing in this case, it should not close the
door to a convicted felon who after final judgment acquires DNA results exonerating him of the crime for
which he was convicted. Legal relief is still available, for instance, to a felon convicted by final judgment of
rape who subsequently gains access to DNA results showing that the semen in the victim's vagina does not
match that of the convicted felon.

Under American jurisprudence, post-conviction DNA testing is availed through a petition for habeas corpus
and motion for new trial. These conventional modes of relief, however, have built-in restrictions that pose
problems to the granting of post-conviction DNA testing.

In habeas corpus cases, relief could not be had unless a constitutional violation was committed during the
convict's trial. In a motion for new trial, the convict must show that the DNA test is a newly
discovered evidence and must not be time-barred to warrant a new trial. Despite these legal
obstacles, American courts granted, albeit restrictively, the requests for post-conviction DNA testing on a
case-by-case basis. The approach to the legal issues varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. When the
application for DNA testing has strong indications that the result could potentially exonerate the convict,
American courts recognized the convict's right to exculpatory evidence.

The 1987 Constitution expressly empowers the Court to "[p]romulgate rules concerning the protection and
enhancement of constitutional rights." Even in the absence of a law allowing post-conviction DNA testing,
the Court under its constitutional mandate may order a new trial if the post-conviction DNA testing will
establish that the convicted felon could not have possibly committed the crime. This is the case when the
post-conviction DNA testing shows that the semen in the victim's vagina does not match that of the
convicted felon. Thus, I submit that a felon convicted by final judgment who could establish through
DNA testing that he could not have committed the crime is not without remedy to prove his innocence and
regain his liberty.

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