On 25 October 2004, Maria Pimentel y Lacap (private respondent) filed an action for frustrated parricide against Joselito Pimentel (petitioner) before the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City.
On 7 February 2005, petitioner received summons to appear before the Regional Trial Court of Antipolo City for the pre-trial and trial of a civil case (Maria Pimentel v. Joselito Pimentel) for Declaration of Nullity of Marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code on the ground of psychological incapacity.
On 11 February 2005, petitioner filed an urgent motion to suspend the proceedings before the RTC Quezon City on the ground of the existence of a prejudicial question.
ISSUE: Whether the resolution of the action for annulment of marriage is a prejudicial question that warrants the suspension of the criminal case for frustrated parricide against petitioner.
The issue in the civil case for annulment of marriage under Article 36 is whether petitioner is psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations. The issue in parricide is whether the accused killed the victim. In this case, since petitioner was charged with frustrated parricide, the issue is whether he performed all the acts of execution which would have killed respondent as a consequence but which, nevertheless, did not produce it by reason of causes independent of petitioner’s will. At the time of the commission of the alleged crime, petitioner and respondent were married. The subsequent dissolution of their marriage will have no effect on the alleged crime that was committed at the time of the subsistence of the marriage. In short, even if the marriage between petitioner and respondent is annulled, petitioner could still be held criminally liable since at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, he was still married to respondent.
We cannot accept petitioner’s reliance on Tenebro v. CA that “the judicial declaration of the nullity of a marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity retroacts to the date of the celebration of the marriage insofar as the vinculum between the spouses is concerned x x x.” First, the issue in Tenebro is the effect of the judicial declaration of nullity of a second or subsequent marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity on a criminal liability for bigamy. There was no issue of prejudicial question in that case. Second, the Court ruled in Tenebro that “[t]here is x x x a recognition written into the law itself that such a marriage, although void ab initio, may still produce legal consequences.” In fact, the Court declared in that case that “a declaration of the nullity of the second marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity is of absolutely no moment insofar as the State’s penal laws are concerned.”
