Absolutory Causes

Nature and Function

Absolutory causes are grounds by which the law withholds criminal liability even though the external act may resemble a felony or an offense. They rest on policy, humanity, family solidarity, statutory grace, or the absence of a punishable stage rather than on a declaration that the act is commendable.

An absolutory cause must have a legal basis. Courts do not create one by sympathy, compromise, restitution, or private settlement, because criminal liability is a matter of public law.

The usual effect is personal and limited. The accused may be free from criminal liability for the specific offense, but may remain civilly liable, liable for another completed offense, or liable under a special law not covered by the exempting policy.

Relation to Other Circumstances

Spontaneous Desistance

In attempted felonies, criminal liability for the intended felony does not arise when the offender begins execution by overt acts but stops by reason of his own spontaneous desistance. The attempted stage exists only when non-completion is due to a cause or accident other than the offender's own voluntary abandonment.

Desistance must be voluntary, timely, and effective. It is voluntary when the decision to stop proceeds from the offender's own will; it is not voluntary when the offender stops because of resistance, intervention, impossibility, lack of means, escape of the victim, or imminent discovery caused by external circumstances.

Desistance must occur before the offender has performed all acts of execution that would produce the felony as a consequence. Once the offender has completed the acts he believes necessary, later remorse does not erase liability for a frustrated or consummated felony unless the law treats the offender's own prevention of the result as negating the stage charged.

Spontaneous desistance is not a general pardon for what has already been done. If the overt acts already constitute another offense, such as threats, trespass, physical injuries, alarm and scandal, malicious mischief, or illegal possession, liability for that completed offense remains.

Conspiracy, Proposal, and Punishable Stage

Mere conspiracy and mere proposal to commit a felony are generally not punishable unless a statute expressly penalizes them. This rule is absolutory in effect because the law ordinarily waits for overt acts before imposing criminal liability.

The rule changes when the law specifically makes the agreement or proposal itself a punishable offense, as in selected crimes against national security, public order, or other statutes that expressly punish preparatory collective conduct.

Conspiracy must be distinguished from conspiracy as a mode of liability. If a felony is attempted, frustrated, or consummated and conspiracy is proved, the act of one conspirator may be treated as the act of all; the non-punishability of mere conspiracy no longer applies.

Light Felonies and Minor Participation

Light felonies are punishable only when consummated, except when committed against persons or property. An attempted or frustrated light felony outside those exceptions produces no criminal liability because the law treats the harm as too slight to punish before consummation.

Accessories are not criminally liable for light felonies. The RPC makes only principals and accomplices liable for light felonies, so post-offense assistance in a light felony is outside the penal reach unless the act independently constitutes another offense.

Accessories Exempt by Relationship

An accessory is exempt from criminal liability when the accessory is related to the principal as spouse, ascendant, descendant, brother or sister within the statutory categories, or relative by affinity in the same degrees. The policy is that the law does not ordinarily punish close family members for acts of concealment or assistance inspired by family affection.

The exemption applies only to accessory liability. It does not protect a relative who acted as principal or accomplice, nor a relative whose conduct constitutes a separate offense under another statute.

The exemption also fails when the accessory profited by the effects of the crime or assisted the offender to profit from them. Family solidarity does not absolve a relative who shares in the criminal gain.

Exceptional Circumstances in Death or Physical Injuries

The rule on death or physical injuries under exceptional circumstances is an absolutory cause in a limited sense. It prevents ordinary liability for homicide, parricide, murder, or physical injuries when the statutory requisites are present, but it may still impose destierro for death or serious physical injuries.

The rule applies when a legally married person surprises the spouse in the act of sexual intercourse with another person and, in the act or immediately thereafter, kills or inflicts serious physical injuries upon either or both participants. It also applies to a parent who surprises a daughter under eighteen and living with the parent in the act of sexual intercourse and acts in the same immediate setting.

The statutory setting is strict. There must be an actual surprise, an actual act of sexual intercourse, an immediate reaction, and no prior consent, promotion, or facilitation of the sexual conduct by the person invoking the rule.

The phrase immediately thereafter requires continuity between the discovery and the assault. If the accused had time to cool off, plan, pursue revenge, procure a weapon in a deliberate interval, or act from a motive independent of the surprise, ordinary criminal liability returns.

If less serious or slight physical injuries are inflicted under the same exceptional circumstances, no penalty is imposed. If a third person is injured, property is destroyed, or another independent offense is committed, the exceptional circumstance does not automatically absorb that separate liability.

Family Property Offenses

The RPC creates a family-based absolutory cause for theft, swindling, and malicious mischief committed among specified relatives. The offender incurs only civil liability because the law favors family peace and private settlement over criminal prosecution for these property wrongs.

The covered relationships include spouses, ascendants and descendants, relatives by affinity in the same line, a widowed spouse with respect to property of the deceased spouse before it has passed to another, and brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, or sisters-in-law when living together.

The exemption is confined to the listed property offenses. It does not apply to robbery, because robbery involves violence or intimidation; it does not apply to offenses against public faith, such as falsification, even if falsification is used to obtain property; and it does not protect a stranger who participates in the offense.

The relationship must exist in the sense required by law at the time of the offense. The rule does not extend by analogy to common-law relationships, distant relatives, business partners, household employees, or corporations owned by family members.

Consent, Pardon, and Complaint-Dependent Offenses

In adultery and concubinage, the offended spouse's consent or pardon bars criminal prosecution. Consent refers to allowance before or during the offense, while pardon refers to forgiveness after the offense; either must be clear, and pardon must cover both offenders when both are alive.

The offended spouse must include both guilty parties in the complaint when both are alive. Selective prosecution contradicts the statutory treatment of the offense as a private wrong that the offended spouse must pursue consistently.

For seduction, abduction, and acts of lasciviousness under the RPC, express pardon by the offended party or by the persons authorized by law to complain may bar prosecution when given before the criminal action is instituted. The requirement of express pardon is stricter than mere tolerance, silence, family negotiation, or an affidavit motivated only by settlement.

Private pardon does not control offenses that the law treats as public crimes or that special laws independently punish. Rape is not extinguished by subsequent marriage, forgiveness, compromise, affidavit of desistance, or cohabitation; the repeal of the former effect-of-pardon rule reflects that rape is prosecuted as an offense against the person and the State.

Any marriage-based extinguishment for other sexual offenses must rest on a current statutory rule and a valid marriage. A void child marriage, family pressure, or private settlement cannot supply an absolutory cause.

Lawful Entry Despite Trespass Language

Entry into another's dwelling is not punishable as trespass when made to prevent serious harm to the entrant, the occupants, or a third person, or when made to render service to humanity or justice. The law treats the invasion of privacy as justified by urgent necessity or public duty.

There is likewise no trespass in entering cafes, taverns, inns, and similar public houses while they are open, because the public invitation negates the unlawful entry element. The privilege ends when the entrant uses force, commits another offense, enters a non-public area, or remains after the lawful basis for entry has ceased.

Protected Seizure of Correspondence in Family or Custodial Relations

The offense of discovering secrets through seizure of correspondence does not apply to parents, guardians, or persons entrusted with custody of minors with respect to papers or letters of the minors under their care, and it does not apply in the same way between spouses where the statute so provides. The exemption reflects family authority and custodial supervision.

The exemption is narrow. It does not authorize violence, coercion, unlawful computer access, identity theft, extortion, public disclosure of secrets, or violation of special privacy statutes.

Statutory No-Liability Rules in Related Laws

Some special statutes create no-liability rules that function like absolutory causes because timely compliance or a narrow factual condition prevents criminal liability from attaching.

Under the Bouncing Checks Law, payment of the check amount or a valid arrangement for payment within the statutory period after notice of dishonor prevents the inference of knowledge of insufficient funds. Without that knowledge element, dishonor alone is not enough for criminal liability.

Under the current statutory rape framework, sexual intercourse with a person below sixteen is generally rape by age, but the law recognizes a narrow close-in-age rule where the age difference is not more than three years and the act is proven consensual, non-abusive, and non-exploitative. The rule is unavailable when the offended party is below thirteen or when force, intimidation, abuse of authority, exploitation, or coercion is present.

Instigation

Instigation is an absolutory cause because the criminal design originates from a public officer or agent, and the accused is induced to commit an offense that he would not otherwise have committed. The law will not punish a person for a crime manufactured by the State through improper inducement.

Instigation differs from entrapment. In entrapment, the criminal intent already exists and officers merely provide an occasion or means to catch the offender; in instigation, the officers implant the criminal intent and move the accused to act.

The line depends on the source of the criminal design and the accused's predisposition. Solicitation, pressure, repeated persuasion, exploitation of vulnerability, or promises engineered by officers may show instigation when they create the offense rather than merely detect it.

Consequences of an Absolutory Cause

An absolutory cause is construed according to its reason and text. A personal cause, such as kinship, benefits only the person who possesses the relationship; an objective cause, such as the absence of a punishable stage, may benefit all whose liability depends on that non-punishable conduct.

The cause does not erase civil liability unless the law necessarily does so. Article 332 expressly leaves civil liability; spontaneous desistance leaves liability for completed acts; and pardon or consent does not waive damages unless a valid civil waiver is separately shown.

The cause also does not absorb distinct crimes. A person absolved as an accessory may still be liable for obstruction under a special law; a family member exempt from theft may still be liable for falsification; and a person protected by exceptional circumstances may still answer for injuries to third persons.

The factual basis must be proved when it is not apparent from the charge. If the facts establishing the absolutory cause appear on the face of the information or are admitted, the issue may defeat prosecution early; otherwise, it is resolved through evidence.