Justifying Circumstances Requisites

1. Self-Defense
a. Unlawful Aggression
b. Reasonable Necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it
c. Lack of Sufficient Provocation from the person defending himself
2. Defense of Relatives
a. Unlawful Aggression
b. Reasonable Necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it
c. In case the provocation was given by the person attacked, the one
making a defense had no part therein
3. Defense of Strangers
a. Unlawful Aggression
b. Reasonable Necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it
c. The person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment, or other
evil motive
4. Avoidance of greater evil or injury
a. That the evil sought to be avoided actually exists
b. Injury feared be greater than that done to avoid it
c. That there be no other practical and less harmful means of preventing
it
5. Fulfillment of duty or lawful exercise of right or office
a. The accused acted in the performance of a duty or in the lawful
exercise of a right or office
b. That the injury caused or the offense committed be the necessary
consequence of the due performance of duty or lawful exercise of such
right or office
6. Obedience to an order issued for some lawful purpose
a. That an order has been issued by a superior
b. That such order must be for some lawful purpose
c. The means used by the subordinate to carry our said order is lawful

Mitigating Circumstances Requisites

1. Incomplete cases of Article 11 and 12

a. Self Defense, Defense of Relatives, Defense of Strangers
i. Unlawful Aggression must be present
b. Avoidance of Greater Evil
i. The evil sought to be avoided needs to exist
c. Fulfillment of Duty
i. Either of the two requisites for fulfillment of duty
d. Obedience to an order
i. Must be done in the obedience to someone
e. Over 15, under 18 years old
i. Acted with discernment
f. Accident
i. Without due care & with fault = negligence
ii. Unlawful act & with intention = felony (not mitigating)
g. Uncontrollable fear
i. Only one of the requisites are present
2. Under 18 and Over 70
a. Without discernment (for under 18)
3. No intention to commit so grave a wrong
a. Notable and evident disproportion between the means employed to
execute the criminal act and its consequences
b. Lack of intent
4. Provocation
a. Provocation must be sufficient
b. Must originate from the offended party
c. Must be immediate to the act
5. Immediate vindication of a grave offense
a. The grave offense be done to the one committing the felony, his
spouse, ascendants, descendants, legitimate, natural, or adopted
brothers or sisters, or relatives by affinity within the same degrees
b. A felony is committed in vindication of such grave offense. A lapse
of time is allowed between the vindication and the doing of the
grave offense.
6. Passion or Obfuscation
a. That there be an act, both unlawful and sufficient to produce such a
condition of mind
b. That said act which produced the obfuscation was not far removed
from the commission of the crime by a considerable length of time,
during which the perpetrator might recover his normal equanimity
7. Voluntary Surrender
a. Surrender to a person
i. That the offender had not been actually arrested
ii. Offender surrendered himself to a person in authority or the
latters agent
iii. That the surrender was voluntary
b. Plea of Guilty
i. Spontaneously confessed his guilt
ii. Confession made in open court before the competent court
that is to try the case

iii. Confession of guilt was made prior to the presentation of

evidence for the prosecution
8. Deaf and dumb, blind or other physical defect
a. Physical defect must restrict means of action, defense, or
communication with fellow beings
9. Illness of the offender
a. Illness must diminish the exercise of his will-power
b. Such illness should not deprive the offender of the consciousness of
his acts
10.
Similar Circumstances

Exempting Circumstances
1. Imbecile or Insane
a. Must not be in a lucid interval
2. Under 15 (RA 9344)
3. Over 15, Under 18
a. Must be over 15 and under 18
b. Does not act with discernment
4. Mere Accident
a. Person is performing a lawful act
b. With due care
c. He causes an injury to another by mere accident
d. Without fault or intention of causing it
5. Irresistible Force
a. Compulsion is by means of physical force
b. Physical force must be irresistible
c. Physical force must come from a third person
6. Uncontrollable Fear
a. Threat which caused the fear was of an evil greater than or at least
equal to, that which he was required to commit
b. That it promised an evil of such gravity and imminence that an
ordinary person would have succumbed to it
7. Fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some
lawful or insuperable cause
a. That an act is required by law to be done
b. A person fails to perform such act
c. His failure to perform such act was due to some lawful or insuperable
cause