Philippine Bar review · Question

Practice question: Impossible Crime

Multiple Choice Hard

Practice question

An actor performs the relevant execution acts with intent to kill an already-dead target, believing the target alive. No other offense is established and the remaining impossible-crime requirements are stipulated. The defense says absence of a possible new death necessarily proves absence of criminal purpose. Which is correct?
  1. Objective impossibility and the actor’s proved evil purpose are distinct
  2. Impossibility automatically erases intention
  3. A corpse must die a second time for any doctrine to apply
  4. All such cases are necessarily consummated homicide
  5. The actor’s belief is legally irrelevant to intent

Legal references

  • Revised Penal Code Articles4–5,8,16–22,59, specified provisions: https://lawphil.net/statutes/acts/act1930/act_3815_1930.html Articles4(2) and59; no obsolete fine computation.
  • Intod v CA GR103119 October21,1992 MAIN: https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1992/oct1992/gr_103119_1992.html
  • Jacinto v People GR162540 July13,2009 MAIN: https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2009/jul2009/gr_162540_2009.html

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