f. Absolutory Causes

Requisites of Mistake of Fact:

• The act done would have been lawful had the facts been as the accused believed them to be;
• The intention of the accused in performing the act should be lawful; and
• The mistake must be without fault or carelessness on the part of the accused. (Id)

Mistake of fact is an absolutory cause for had the facts been true to the belief of the offender, that act he did can be justified and will negative criminal liability as the element of criminal intent is absent. Thus, mistake of fact is relevant only in dolo. Hence, if the offender is negligent in ascertaining the true state of facts, he may be free from dolo but not from culpa. (Boado, Compact Reviewer in Criminal Law)

ELEMENTS:

• A person is performing a lawful act;
• With due care;
• He causes an injury to another by mere accident; and
• Without fault or intention of causing it.

IRRESISTIBLE FORCE

Means that the offender uses violence or physical force to compel another person to commit a crime.

ELEMENTS:

• The compulsion is by means of physical force;
• The physical force must be irresistible; and
• The physical force must come from a third person.

Passion and obfuscation cannot amount to irresistible force.

The force must be so irresistible as to reduce the actor to a mere instrument who acts not only without will but against his will. The compulsion must be of such a character as to leave no opportunity to the accused for escape or self-defense in equal combat. (People v. Loreno, G.R. No. L-54414)

ELEMENTS:

• The threat which causes the fear is of an evil greater than, or at least equal to, that which he is required to commit; and
• It promises an evil of such gravity and imminence that an ordinary man would have succumbed to it.

6. PREVENTED BY A LAWFUL OR INSUPERABLE CAUSE (PAR. 7)

ELEMENTS:

• An act is required by law to be done;
• A person fails to perform such act; and
• His failure to perform such act was due to some lawful or insuperable cause.

Absolutory Causes

• Spontaneous desistance – The spontaneous desistance of the person who commenced the commission of a felony before he could perform all the acts of execution. (Art. 6, RPC)
• Attempted or frustrated light felonies – Light felony is only attempted or frustrated, and is not against persons or property. (Art. 7, RPC)
• Accessories who are exempt from criminal liability – Spouses, ascendants, descendants, legitimate, natural, and adopted brothers and sisters, or relatives by affinity within the same degrees, except those who profit themselves or assist the offenders to profit by the effects of the crime. (Art. 20, RPC)
• Legal grounds for arbitrary detention (Art. 124, RPC)
• Legal grounds for trespass (Art. 280, RPC)
• Swindling or malicious mischief committed or caused mutually by the following persons:
• Spouses, ascendants and descendants, or relatives by affinity in the same line;
• The widowed spouse with respect to the property which belonged to the deceased spouse before the same shall have passed into the possession of another; and
• Brothers and sisters and brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, if living together. The crime of theft, swindling or malicious mischief is committed against a relative. (Art. 332, RPC)
• Death or physical injuries inflicted under exceptional circumstances – When only slight or less serious physical injuries are inflicted by the person who surprised his spouse or, under the same circumstances, by a parent with respect to a daughter under eighteen years of age and living with the parent, in the act of sexual intercourse with another person. (Art. 247, RPC)
• Marriage of the offender with the offended party – In cases of seduction, abduction and acts of lasciviousness, the marriage of the offender with the offended party shall extinguish the criminal action or remit the penalty already imposed upon him. (Art. 344, RPC) In cases of rape, a subsequent valid marriage between the offender and the offended party shall extinguish the criminal action or the penalty imposed. (Art. 266-C, RPC)
• Mistake of fact – To constitute a crime, evil intent must combine with an act. A mistake of fact shows that the act committed have proceeded from no sort of evil in the mind and thus necessarily relieves the actor from criminal liability. The applicable maxims here are actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (the act itself does not make man guilty unless his intention were so) and actus me incito factus non est meus actus (an act done by me against my will is not my act). (U.S. v. Ah Chong, G.R. No. L5272)
• Instigation