LEGAL NOTE 0030: WHAT IS CUSTODIAL INVESTIGATION?

SOURCE:  2011-0047:  BENJAMIN JESALVA VS. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES (G.R. NO. 187725,19 JANUARY 2011, NACHURA, J.) SUBJECTS: HOMICIDE; CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE; CUSTODIAN INVESTIGATION. (BRIEF TITLE: JESALVA VS. PEOPLE)

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WHAT IS CUSTODIAL INVESTIGATION?

Custodial investigation refers to “any questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.”

WHAT DOES CUSTODIAL INVESTIGATION PRESUPPOSE?

This presupposes that he is suspected of having committed a crime and that the investigator is trying to elicit information or a confession from him.

WHEN DOES THE RULE ON  CUSTODIAL INVESTIGATION BEGIN TO APPLY?

The rule begins to operate at once, as soon as the investigation ceases to be a general inquiry into an unsolved crime, and direction is aimed upon a particular suspect who has been taken into custody and to whom the police would then direct interrogatory questions which tend to elicit incriminating statements.

SUPPOSE THE SUSPECT WENT TO THE POLICE STATION AND NARRATED EVENTS FREELY? IS HE CONSIDERED UNDER POLICE INVESTIGATION?

No.

The assailed statements herein were spontaneously made by petitioner and were not at all elicited through questioning. It was established that petitioner, together with his cousin Fiscal Jayona, personally went to the police station and voluntarily made the statement that Leticia jumped out of his vehicle at around 12:30 a.m. of September 9, 1992. The RTC and the CA did not, therefore, err in holding that the constitutional procedure for custodial investigation is not applicable in the instant case.