"The chance to plea bargain is not a reason to commit a crime."
"The chance to plea bargain is not a reason to commit a crime."
Plea, in criminal procedure, is entered by the accused when criminal information containing the offense charged is read during the arraignment; it may either be a plea of guilty or plea of not guilty. If the accused enters a plea of guilty he acknowledges the commission of the crime. With this, the judge will proceed to render a judgment and sentence the accused unless it is a capital offense.
On the other hand, if a plea of not guilty is entered by the accused he denies the commission of the offense. This will prompt the judge to proceed to pre-trial, trial, and promulgation of judgment based on the evidence presented by the parties. In simpler words, the accused will go through a full blown trial of the case to prove his innocence.
Plea of guilty to a lesser offense is a type of plea of guilty. It is when the accused, with the consent of the offended party and prosecutor, may be allowed by the trial court to plead guilty to a lesser offense which is necessarily included in the offense charged (Section 2, Rule 116, Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure). The period to enter this type of plea of guilty is from arraignment to pre-trial; and in some exceptional circumstances during trial. In this instance, the accused may be allowed to plead guilty to the lesser offense after withdrawing his previous plea of not guilty (Section 2, Rule 116, Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure).
Plea bargaining in criminal cases is a process whereby the accused and the prosecution work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval. It usually involves the defendant [accused] pleading guilty to a lesser offense or to only one or some of the counts of a multi-count indictment in return for a lighter sentence than that of the graver charge (People v. Reofor, G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
Examples of offenses that can be subject to the plea of guilty to a lesser offense are: qualified theft to theft; murder to homicide; grave slander to simple slander; or frustrated homicide to serious physical injuries. It may be observed from the examples given that while the offenses have similar elements, the element that will make the offense more grave is absent or harder to prove.
The State may accept a plea bargain of the accused to dispense with the trial and consequently save the time and resources of the government. Weighing the difficulty of proving the graver offense with the certainty of proving the lesser offense, the State may negotiate with the accused for the latter to plead guilty to the lesser offense.
Hence, it is a give-and-take negotiation wherein both the prosecution and the defense make concessions in order to avoid potential losses. The rules on plea bargaining neither create nor take away a right; rather, it operates as a means to implement an existing right by regulating the judicial process for enforcing rights and duties recognized by substantive law and for justly administering remedy and redress for a disregard or infraction of them (People v. Reofor, G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
In 2019, the Supreme Court in the exercise of its rule-making power under the Constitution, amended the Rules on Evidence stating that “[N]either is any statement made in the course of plea bargaining with the prosecution, which does not result in a plea of guilty … admissible” (Section 28, Rule 130, 2019 Amendment to the Rules on Evidence). This gives the accused or his authorized representative sufficient freedom to negotiate with the prosecution on the terms of the plea bargain without fear that if the latter is unsuccessful it will be used to impeach him during trial.
While plea bargaining is allowed by the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, “it is well to clarify that a defendant has no constitutional right to plea bargain. No basic rights are infringed by trying him rather than accepting a plea of guilty; the prosecutor need not do so if he prefers to go to trial (People v. Reofor, G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
Under the present Rules, the acceptance of an offer to plead guilty is not a demandable right but depends on the consent of the offended party and the prosecutor, which is a condition precedent to a valid plea of guilty to a lesser offense that is necessarily included in the offense charged (People v. Reofor, G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
The fiscal or prosecutor has full control of the prosecution of criminal actions. Consequently, it is his duty to always prosecute the proper offense, not any lesser or graver one, when the evidence in his hands can only sustain the former (Criminal Procedure, Tranquil S. Salvador III citing People v. Villarama, Jr. G.R. No. 99287, 23 June 1992).
Hence, the trial court in the case of People v. Reofer gravely abused its discretion in granting the accused motion to plea bargain, notwithstanding the prosecution's opposition to the same which is grounded on DOJ Circular No. 27. Effectively, the plea of guilty of the accused to a lesser offense (to which he was convicted of) was made without the consent of the prosecution (G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
Since the plea of guilt and subsequent conviction of the accused for a lesser offense clearly lack one of the requisites of a valid plea bargain, the plea bargaining is void. Resultantly, the judgment rendered by the trial court which was based on a void plea bargaining is also void ab initio and cannot be considered to have attained finality. Thus, since the judgment of conviction rendered against the respondent [accused] is void, it is only proper to continue with the trial (People v. Reofor, G.R. No. 247575, November 16, 2020).
The special attention to plea bargaining especially in drugs cases was brought about by the case of Estipona v. Lobrigo, which declared unconstitutional Section 23 of Republic Act No. 9165; stating that prohibition against plea bargaining in drugs cases are contrary to the rule-making authority of the Supreme Court under the Constitution. [T]he power to promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights, pleading, practice, and procedure in all courts belongs exclusively to the Supreme Court (G.R. No. 226679, August 15, 2017).
Following the ruling, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the Guidelines on Plea Bargaining Agreement for Republic Act No. 9165 on November 21, 2017 which was subsequently amended on June 26, 2018. Examples of acceptable plea bargains in drugs cases are: (a) sale and trading (Section 5) to possession of dangerous drugs (Section 11) but permitted only if the drugs involved are shabu (less than 5 grams) and/or marijuana (less than 300 grams); and (b) possession of drugs (Section 11, par. 3) where the quantity of shabu, opium, morphine, cocaine, among others, is less than 5 grams, or marijuana wherein the quantity is less than 300 grams, to possession of equipment, apparatus, and drug paraphernalia (Section 12).
On May 4, 2018, the Supreme Court issued the Plea Bargaining Framework in Drug Cases, OCA Circular No. 90-2018. In the case of Sayre v. Xenos, the Supreme Court (SC) was called to determine the use and application of the DOJ Guidelines vis-à-vis the SC Framework since the proposal of the accused to plea bargain therein was in accordance with the SC framework, while the prosecutor argued that they are bound by DOJ Circular No. 27; thus, rejecting the former’s plea bargain offer.
The Supreme Court succinctly explained that “the DOJ Circular No. 27 provision pertaining to acceptable plea bargain … did not violate the rule-making authority of the Court. DOJ Circular No. 27 merely serves as an internal guideline for prosecutors to observe before they may give their consent to proposed plea bargains … Presiding Judge Xenos did not act … with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when he disregarded the provisions of OCA Circular No. 90-2018” (Sayre v. Xenos, G.R. Nos. 244413 & 244415-16, February 18, 2020).
With the continuing objection on the part of the prosecution to the plea bargaining proposal of the accused, the parties failed to arrive at a "mutually satisfactory disposition of the case" that may be submitted for the court's approval. Hence, the trial court correctly ordered the continuation of the proceedings because there was no mutual agreement to plea bargain between the prosecution and the accused (Sayre v. Xenos, G.R. Nos. 244413 & 244415-16, February 18, 2020).
The chance to plea bargain is not a reason to commit a crime. It is a criminal procedural process that is available only to the accused once indicted in court. There is no assurance that a plea bargain offer of the accused will be approved by the court since the offended party, arresting officer in victimless crimes, and the prosecutor will have to consent. It is always best to avoid being whirled into a criminal litigation by not committing a crime.
