ROBIN PADILLA VS. Court of Appeals
Facts: Petitioner was involved in a hit and run
accident and was later apprehended by the police after he was chased by them.
During the arrest, petitioner was found to have in his possession two different
firearms and 2 other firearms were found inside his vehicle after the policemen
saw the first two firearms he was carrying.
Petitioner was then
convicted of illegal possession of firearms. Hence the present petition.
Issue: WON the warrantless search and arrest
conducted on petitioner was valid
Held:
Warrantless arrests
are sanctioned in the following instances:
Sec. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful.
— A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:
(a) When, in his presence, the person to be
arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an
offense;
(b) When an offense has in fact just been
committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to
be arrested has committed it.
(c) When the person to be arrested is a
prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where he is
serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or
has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.
Paragraph (a) requires that the person be
arrested (i) after he has committed or while he is actually committing or is at
least attempting to commit an offense, (ii) in the presence of the arresting
officer or private person. 29 Both elements concurred here, as
it has been established that petitioner's vehicle figured in a hit and run — an
offense committed in the "presence" of Manarang, a private person,
who then sought to arrest petitioner. It must be stressed at this point that
"presence" does not only require that the arresting person sees the
offense, but also when he "hears the disturbance created thereby AND
proceeds at once to the scene." 30 As testified to by Manarang, he
heard the screeching of tires followed by a thud, saw the sideswiped victim (balut vendor), reported the incident to the
police and thereafter gave chase to the erring Pajero vehicle using his
motorcycle in order to apprehend its driver. After having sent a radio report
to the PNP for assistance, Manarang proceeded to the Abacan bridge where he
found responding policemen SPO2 Borja and SPO2 Miranda already positioned near
the bridge who effected the actual arrest of petitioner.
The
five (5) well-settled instances when a warrantless search and seizure of
property is valid, 44 are as follows:
1. warrantless search incidental to a lawful
arrest recognized under Section 12, Rule 126 of the Rules of Court45 and by prevailing jurisprudence 46,
2. Seizure of evidence in "plain
view", the elements of which are:
(a). a prior valid intrusion based on the valid warrantless arrest
in which the police are legally present in the pursuit of their official
duties;
(b). the evidence was inadvertently discovered by the police who had the right to be
where they are;
(c). the evidence must be immediately
apparent, and
(d). "plain view" justified
mere seizure of evidence without further search.
3.
search of a moving vehicle. 49 Highly regulated by the
government, the vehicle's inherent mobility reduces expectation of privacy
especially when its transit in public thoroughfares furnishes a highly
reasonable suspicion amounting to probable cause that the occupant committed a
criminal activity.
4.
consented warrantless search, and
5.
customs search.
In
conformity with respondent court's observation, it indeed appears that the
authorities stumbled upon petitioner's firearms and ammunitions without even
undertaking any active search which, as it is commonly understood, is a prying
into hidden places for that which is concealed. 51 The seizure of the Smith &
Wesson revolver and an M-16 rifle magazine was justified for they came within
"plain view" of the policemen who inadvertently
discovered the revolver and
magazine tucked in petitioner's waist and back pocket respectively, when he
raised his hands after alighting from his Pajero. The same justification
applies to the confiscation of the M-16 armalite rifle which wasimmediately
apparent to the policemen as
they took a casual glance at the Pajero and saw said rifle lying horizontally
near the driver's seat. 52 Thus it has been held that:
(W)hen in pursuing an illegal action or
in the commission of a criminal offense, the . . . police officers should
happen to discover a criminal offense being committed by any person, they are
not precluded from performing their duties as police officers for the
apprehension of the guilty person and the taking of the, corpus delicti. 53
Objects whose possession are prohibited
by law inadvertently found in plain view are subject to seizure even without a
warrant.
With respect to the Berreta pistol and a
black bag containing assorted magazines, petitioner voluntarily surrendered them
to the police. This latter
gesture of petitioner indicated a waiver of his right against the alleged
search and seizure 56,
and that his failure to quash the information estopped him from assailing any
purported defect.
Even assuming that the firearms and
ammunitions were products of an active search done by the authorities on the
person and vehicle of petitioner, their seizure without a search warrant
nonetheless can still be justified under a search incidental to a lawful arrest
(first instance). Once the lawful arrest was effected, the police may undertake
a protective search 58 of the passenger compartment and
containers in the vehicle 59 which are within petitioner's
grabbing distance regardless of the nature of the offense. 60 This satisfied the two-tiered test
of an incidental search: (i) the item to be searched (vehicle) was within the
arrestee's custody or area of immediate control 61 and (ii) the search was
contemporaneous with the arrest. 62 The products of that search are
admissible evidence not excluded by the exclusionary rule. Another
justification is a search of a moving vehicle (third instance). In connection
therewith, a warrantless search is constitutionally permissible when, as in
this case, the officers conducting the search have reasonable or probable cause
to believe, before the search, that either the motorist is a law-offender (like
herein petitioner with respect to the hit and run) or the contents or cargo of
the vehicle are or have been instruments or the subject matter or the proceeds
of some criminal offense.