c. Duplicity of the Offense

DUPLICITY OF THE OFFENSE; EXCEPTION

The information is defective when it charges two or more DISTINCT or DIFFERENT offenses.

General rule: A complaint or information must charge only one offense.

Exception: When the law prescribes a single punishment for various offenses (Sec. 13, Rule 110)

Duplicitous Information

Duplicity in criminal pleading is the joinder of two or more distinct and separate offenses in the same count of an indictment or information. It is duplicitous if it charges two or more different offenses.

Exceptions to the Rule on Duplicity

• Continuous crimes;
• Complex crimes;
• Special complex crimes;
• Crimes susceptible of being committed in various modes; and
• Crimes of which another offense is an ingredient. (People v. Camerino, G.R. No. L13484, 1960)

Requisites of Continuous Crime (PUU):

• Plurality of acts performed separately during a period of time;
• Unity of penal provision infringed upon or violated;
• Unity of criminal intent which means that two or more violations of the same penal provision are united in one and the same intent leading to the perpetration of the same criminal purpose or claim (Gamboa v. CA, G.R. No. L-41054 November 28, 1975).

Where the law with respect to an offense may be committed in any of the different modes provided by law, the indictment in the information is sufficient if the offense is alleged to have been committed in one, two or more modes specified therein. The various ways of committing the offense should be considered as a description of only one offense and the information cannot be dismissed on the ground of multifariousness.

When several people are killed by separate bullets from a single automatic weapon, Art. 48 of RPC will not apply. Each person killed became the victim, respectively, of a separate crime. Although the burst of shots was caused by one single act of pressing the trigger of the automatic weapon, the person firing it has only to keep pressing the trigger with his finer and it would fire continually. Hence, it is not the single act of pressing the trigger which produced the several felonies, but the number of bullets which were discharged (People v Tabaco, G.R. No. 100382- 100385, 1997).