Nurses and Crimes

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Crime

•  an act committed or omitted in violation of societal law and punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment or death
• Two elements:
1. Criminal act
2. Evil/Criminal intent

Conspiracy to Commit Crime

• exists when two or more persons agree to commit a felony and decide to do it

1. Principals - those who take a direct part in the execution of the act; directly for or induce others to commit it
2. Accomplices - those persons who, not being principals, cooperate in the execution of the offense by previous or simultaneous act
3. Accessories - those who, having knowledge of the commission of the crime; by profiting themselves or assisting the offender to profit from the effects of the crime by destroying or concealing body of the crime, or the effects or instruments, in order to prevent its discovery or by harboring, concealing or assisting in the escape of the principal of the crime

Criminal Actions

• deal with acts of offenses against public welfare; vary from minor offenses and misdemeanor to felonies
1. Misdemeanor - general name for a criminal offense which does not in law amount to felony; punishment is usually a fine or imprisonment for a term of less than one year
2. Felony - a public offense for which is convicted person is liable to be sentenced to death or to be imprisoned in a penitentiary or prison; felony is committed with deceit and fault
• Deceit (Dolo) -exists when the act is performed with deliberate intent
• Fault (Culpa) - when wrongful acts result from imprudence, negligence or lack of skill or foresight

Classes of Felonies

According to the degree of the acts of execution:

1. Consummated - when all the elements necessary for its execution and accomplishment are present
2. Frustrated - when the offender performs all the acts or execution which will produce the felony as a consequence but which nevertheless do not produce it by reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator
3. Attempted - when the offender commence the commission of the same directly by overt acts, and does not perform all the acts or execution which shall produce the felony, by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance

According to the Degree of Punishment:

1. Grave - those to which law attaches the capital punishment (death) or penalties which in any of their periods are afflictive imprisonment from 6 years to 1 day to life imprisonment or fine not exceeding P6000.00
2. Less Grave - those which the law punishes with penalties which in their maximum period are correctional (imprisonment from 1 month and 1 day to 6 years, or fine not exceeding P6000.00
3. Light Felonies - those infractions of law for the commission of which the penalty of arresto menor (imprisonment for 1 day to 30 days or fine not exceeding P200.00 or both

CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING CRIMINAL LIABILITY

Justifying Circumstances

• following do not incur any criminal liability
• Anyone who acts in defense of his person or rights, provided that the following circumstances concur
1. Unlawful aggression
2. Reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it
3. Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself
• Any one who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouse, ascendants, descendants, or legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters, or his relatives by affinity in the same degrees and those consanguinity within the fourth civil degree, provided that the first and second requisites prescribed in the next preceding circumstance are present, and the further requisite, in case the revocation was given by the person attacked, that the one making defense had no part therein
• Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger, provided that the first and second requisites mentioned in the circumstances of this Article are present and that the person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment or other evil motive
• Any person who, in order to avoid an evil or injury, does not act which causes damage to another, provided that the following requisites are present:
1. That the evil sought to be avoided actually exists
2. That the injury feared to be greater than that done to avoid it
3. That there be no other practical and less harmful means of preventing it
• Any person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office
• Any person who acts in obedience to an order issued by a superior for some lawful purpose

Exempting Circumstances

• the following are exempt from criminal liability
1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval. When the imbecile or an insane person has committed an act which the law defines as a felony (delito), the court shall order his confinement in one of the hospitals or asylums established for persons thus afflicted, which he shall not be permitted to leave without first obtaining the permission of the same court
2. A person under nine years of age
3. A person over nine years of age and under fifteen, unless he has acted with discernment, in which case, such minor shall be proceeded against in accordance with the provisions of the Revised Penal Code
4. Any person, who, while performing a lawful act with due care, causes an injury by mere accident without fault or intention of causing it
5. Any person who act under the compulsion of irresistible force
6. Any person who acts under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater injury
7. Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some lawful insuperable cause

Mitigating Circumstances

• the following are mitigating circumstances:
1. When all the requisites necessary to justify or to exempt from criminal liability in the respective cases are not attendant
2. That the offender is under eighteen year of age or over seventy years
3. That the offender had no intention to commit so grave a wrong as that committed
4. That sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceded the act
5. That the act was committed in the immediate vindication of a grave offense to the one committing the felony (delito), his spouse, ascendants, or relatives by affinity within the same degrees
6. That of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation
7. That the offender had voluntarily surrendered himself to a person in authority or his agents or that he had voluntarily confessed his guilt before the court prior to the presentation of the evidence for the prosecution
8. That the offender is deaf and dumb, blind or otherwise suffering some physical defect which thus restricts his means of action, defense, or communications with his fellow beings
9. Such illness of the offender as would diminish the exercise of the will-power of the offender without however depriving him of the consciousness of his acts
10. And finally, any other circumstances of a similar nature and analogous to those above mentioned

Aggravating Circumstances

• the following are aggravating circumstances:
1. That advantage is taken by the offender of his public position
2. That the crime be committed in contempt or with insult to the public authorities
3. That the act be committed with insult or in disregard of the respect due the offended party on account of his rank, age or sex or that is be committed in the dwelling of the offended party, if the latter has not given provocation
4. That the act be committed with abuse of confidence or obvious ungratefullness
5. That the crime be committed in the place dedicated to religious worship
6. That the crime be committed on the occasion of a conflagration, shipwreck, earthquake, epidemic or other calamity or misfortune
7. That the crime be committed in consideration of a price, reward or promise
8. That the crime be committed by means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion, stranding of a vessel or international damage thereto, derailment of a locomotive, or by the use of any other artifice involving great waste and ruin
9. That the act be committed with evidence premeditation
10. That the craft, fraud or disguise be employed
11. That advantage is taken of superior strength, or means be employed to weaken the defense
12. That means be employed or circumstances brought about which add ignominy to the natural effects of the act
13. That the crime be committed after an unlawful entry. There is an unlawful entry when an entrance of a crime a wall, roof, floor, door or window is broken
14. That the wrong done in the commission of the crime be deliberately augmented by causing other wrong not necessary for its commissions

Alternating Circumstances

• those which must be taken into consideration as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of the crime and other conditions attending its commission
• they are the relationship, intoxication and the degree of instruction and education of the offender
• The alternative circumstance of relationship shall be taken into consideration when the offended party in the spouse, ascendant, descendant, legitimate, natural, or adopted brother or sister, or relative by affinity in the same degrees of the offender
• The intoxication of the offender shall be taken into consideration as a mitigating circumstances when the offender has committed a felony in a state of intoxication, if the same is not habitual or intentional, it shall be considered as an aggravating circumstance

Murder

• unlawful killing of a human being with intent to kill

Homicide

• the killing of a human being by another without criminal intent

Infanticide

• the killing of a child less than three (3) days of age

Abortion

• expulsion of the product of conception before the age of variability with the intention of prematurely ending a pregnancy, willfully and unlawfully does any act to cause the same as guilty of procuring abortion

Parricide

• crime committed by one who kills his/her father, mother, or child whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his/her ascendants or descendants of his/her spouse

Simulation of Birth

• substitute one child for another, falsification of birth favoring adoption

Torts

• legal wrong committed calling for compensation in damages
• examples of torts:
1. Assault and Battery. Assault is the imminent threat of harmful or offensive bodily contact while battery is an intentional, unconsented touching of another person
2. False Imprisonment or Illegal Detention. Means unjustifiable detention of a person without a legal warrant within boundaries fixed by the defendant  by an act or violation of duty intended to result in such confinement
3. Invasion of Right to Privacy and Breach of Confidentiality. Nurses may be liable for invasion of privacy if they divulge information from a patient's chart to improper sources or unauthorized persons
4. Defamation. In general, character assassination, be it written or spoken constitutes defamation
• Slander - oral defamation of a person speaking unprivileged of false words by which his reputation is damaged
• Libel - defamation by written words, cartoons or such representations