A gaping lacuna in our legal system
Credit to Author: FR. RANHILIO CALLANGAN AQUINO| Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 16:41:14 +0000
WHAT remedy does a person wrongly convicted have after the judgment of conviction has attained finality? Convictions become final for so many reasons other than the established guilt of the accused.
The avenue of appeal can be too costly or too tedious. Or the appellate courts can go the well-worn route of relying on the supposed privileged capacity of the trial court “to observe the conduct and demeanor of the witnesses” and refuse to disturb findings of fact.
The forthright answer to the question is that the hapless sentenced person is really without remedy — except perhaps executive clemency. But one who applies for an act of presidential grace must accept guilt. Why should a man who has consistently protested his innocence and who knows his innocence accept guilt? And the direct but pathetic answer is that that would be the only way for him to go free.
There is, in the United States, the “writ of coram nobis” that allows the virtual revival of a case long resolved in order to correct a miscarriage of justice. Such a writ is not available in this jurisdiction, but is sorely needed, especially at a time that judges rush to clear their dockets and, aside from holding continuous trials, must write decisions often in a rush, without jury or assessors to aid them in ferreting out facts.
Of course, one can argue that since the periods for appeal and for a petition for certiorari are any similar relief are determined by the Rules of Court, the Supreme Court, as ultimate rule-making body, can suspend its own rules. In fact, it has, in the past, suspended its own rules. The rule on “locus standi” is one such rule frequently relaxed, if not completely disregarded. And so, the Court could, in truly meritorious cases, suspend the rule on the seasonal perfection of an appeal and give due course on the basis of clear error of fact — whether on the basis of newly discovered evidence or some other ground.
We hit however a conundrum here, for it has also been held that when the period to perfect an appeal has lapsed, the court loses jurisdiction. And so if the error in the appreciation of facts, or newly discovered evidence that warrants setting aside the judgment of conviction and ordering the immediate release of the sentenced person should occur long after the period for appeal or review or certiorari has lapsed, strictly, the case would be beyond the reach of the courts — jurisdiction having lapsed.
When DNA evidence was unavailable or sophisticated forensic techniques were unknown, most findings of fact were accorded finality. But even then, errors were not completely unknown. All that the helpless convict could do was serve time — or worse, submit to judicially ordered murder! I think it imperative that as the justice system matures and we become ever more cognizant of the fallibility of human judgments, that much of what passes for “findings of fact” are actually articulately phrased conjectures, then the law of remedies should make available some antidote to our misplaced — but humanly costly — pretensions at truth.
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com
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