caught in the act

Few people know that there is a legal way a husband or a wife could kill his/her spouse without having to be incarcerated in jail. Fewer people are aware that a parent can evade prosecution even if he kills and maims his daughter's boyfriend.

Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code involves death or physical injuries inflicted under exceptional circumstances. It provides that:

"Any legally married person who having surprised his spouse in the act of committing sexual intercourse with another person, shall kill any of them or both of them in the act or immediately thereafter, or shall inflict upon them any serious physical injury, shall suffer the penalty of destierro.

If he shall inflict upon them physical injuries of any other kind, he shall be exempt from punishment.

These rules shall be applicable, under the same circumstances, to parents with respect to their daughters under eighteen years of age, and their seducer, while the daughters are living with their parents."

Technically speaking, Article 247 instead of defining a felony endeavors to define the circumstances where a person may be exempt from the commission of a crime. Destierro is not a penalty but more of a preventive banishment so that the relatives of the dead fornicators may not exact revenge against the killer.

In the case of the offended husband/wife, the abovequoted law applies only when the following essential elements are present:

1. legally married to the spouse;

2. he/she must surprise the spouse;

3. the spouse must be surprised en flagrante delicto, meaning in the act of coitus.

4. he/she must have killed the spouse and his/her lover while they were in the act of sexual intercourse or immediately thereafter.

Of all the above elements the 3rd and 4th ones have generated the most colorful jurisprudence.

The Supreme court in one case has to resolve the issue of whether or not the husband should patiently wait for the fornicators to have coitus before he could barge in and kill them. The settled rule is that there must be actual sexual intercourse and not merely preparatory acts (foreplay). This led one justice to vociferously dissent and say:

"must the offended husband look on in the meantime and wait until the very physical act of coition takes place? This interpretation is far from being rational and certainly does violence to the reason and purpose of the law."

And in another case the high court convicted the husband of homicide because he killed his wife one day after he has caught her with another man saying "the killing was not the byproduct of the husband's rage"

for the parent however there are stricter requirements. the daughter must be under eighteen years of age, she must be living in with the parent and again if they were surprised by the parent in the act of sexual intercourse.

the lesson to be learned here.....

long foreplay may save your life.