7/28/2019 People vs. Genosa (Digest)

1/1

PEOPLE V. GENOSA

GRNo.-135891 Sept. 29, 2000

Appellant was found guilty of parricide. She now requests an examination by

psychologists to determine her state of mind then under the ground of the batteredwoman syndrome.

Held:

There are four characteristics of the syndrome:1)woman believes that the violence was

her fault;2)she has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence

elsewhere;3)she fears for her life and/or the childrens lives;4)she has an irrational belief

that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient. Trapped in a cycle of violence and

constant fear, it is not unlikely that she would succumb to her helplessness and fail to

perceive possible solutions to the problem than to injure or kill her batterer. She is

seized by fear of an existing or impending lethal aggression and thus would have noopportunity beforehand to deliberate o her acts and to choose a less fatal means of

eliminating her sufferings.

Petition granted. In P v Pares, after a final conviction of appellant therein, the Court

granted his Urgent Omnibus Motion and allowed him to undergo mental and neuralgic

other examinations to determine that he was a deaf-mute. Based on that finding and

that he was unaided in the trial, he was granted a rearrangement and retrial. This action

is justified on the rule that only upon proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt may an

accused to consigned to a lethal injection chamber. Also as Justice Pun said, man

should be adjudged or held accountable for wrongful acts so long as free will appearsunimpaired.