This document summarizes a court case between the People of the Philippines vs. Marivic Genosa. Marivic Genosa was found guilty of parricide for killing her husband Ben Genosa. On appeal, Marivic claimed self-defense, alleging a history of repeated beatings by her husband. The court acknowledged the possibility of a self-defense argument based on battered woman syndrome but found that in this case, Marivic did not establish that she experienced the cycle of violence, actual fear of imminent harm, or probable grave harm required to satisfy the elements of self-defense. The court upheld her conviction.
This document summarizes a court case between the People of the Philippines vs. Marivic Genosa. Marivic Genosa was found guilty of parricide for killing her husband Ben Genosa. On appeal, Marivic claimed self-defense, alleging a history of repeated beatings by her husband. The court acknowledged the possibility of a self-defense argument based on battered woman syndrome but found that in this case, Marivic did not establish that she experienced the cycle of violence, actual fear of imminent harm, or probable grave harm required to satisfy the elements of self-defense. The court upheld her conviction.
This document summarizes a court case between the People of the Philippines vs. Marivic Genosa. Marivic Genosa was found guilty of parricide for killing her husband Ben Genosa. On appeal, Marivic claimed self-defense, alleging a history of repeated beatings by her husband. The court acknowledged the possibility of a self-defense argument based on battered woman syndrome but found that in this case, Marivic did not establish that she experienced the cycle of violence, actual fear of imminent harm, or probable grave harm required to satisfy the elements of self-defense. The court upheld her conviction.
Facts: On or about the 15th day of November 1995, at Barangay Bilwang, Municipality of Isabel, province of Leyte, accused Marivic Genosa, with intent to kill, with treachery and evident premeditation, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault, hit and wound BEN GENOSA, her legitimate husband, with the use of a hard deadly weapon, which the accused had provided herself for the purpose, inflicting several wounds which caused his death. The lower court found the accused, Marivic Genosa y Isidro, GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of parricide and sentenced the accused with the penalty of DEATH. On appeal, the appellant alleged that despite the evidence on record of repeated and severe beatings she had suffered at the hands of her husband, the lower court failed to appreciate her self-defense theory. She claimed that under the surrounding circumstances, her act of killing her husband was equivalent to self-defense. Issue: Whether or not the battered woman syndrome as a viable plea within the concept of self- defense is applicable in this case. Held: No. The court, however, is not discounting the possibility of self-defense arising from the battered woman syndrome. We now sum up our main points. First, each of the phases of the cycle of violence must be proven to have characterized at least two battering episodes between the appellant and her intimate partner. Second, the final acute battering episode preceding the killing of the batterer must have produced in the battered persons mind an actual fear of an imminent harm, from her batterer and an honest belief that she needed to use force in order to save her life. Third, at the time of the killing, the batterer must have posed probablenot necessarily immediate and actualgrave harm to the accused, based on the history of violence perpetrated by the former against the latter. Taken altogether, these circumstances could satisfy the requisites of self-defense. Under the existing facts of the present case, however, not all of these elements were duly established.