De Ungria M C A, Sagum M S, Calacal G C, Delfin F C, Tabbada K A, Dalet M R M, Te T O, Diokno J I, Diokno M S I, Asplen C A
DNA Analysis Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines.
Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2008 Sep;2(4):329-32. doi: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2008.04.004. Epub 2008 Jun 2.
The death penalty remains a contentious issue even though it has been abolished in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, European Union member nations and some Asian countries such as Cambodia, East Timor and Nepal. Many argue that the irrevocability of the death penalty, in the face of potential erroneous convictions, can never justify its imposition. The Philippines, the first Asian country that abolished the death penalty in 1987, held the record for the most number of mandatory death offenses (30 offenses) and death eligible offenses (22 offenses) after it was re-imposed in 1994. Majority of death penalty convictions were decided based on testimonial evidence. While such cases undergo automatic review by the Supreme Court, the appellate process in the Philippines is not structured to accept post-conviction evidence, including DNA evidence. Because of the compelling nature of post-conviction DNA evidence in overturning death penalty convictions in the United States, different groups advocated its use in the Philippines. In one such case, People v Reynaldo de Villa, the defendant was charged with raping his 13-year-old niece that supposedly led to birth of a female child, a situation commonly known as 'criminal paternity'. This paper reports the results of the first post-conviction DNA test using 16 Short Tandem Repeat (STR) DNA markers in a criminal paternity case (People v Reynaldo de Villa) and discusses the implications of these results in the Philippine criminal justice system.
尽管在澳大利亚、新西兰、加拿大、欧盟成员国以及柬埔寨、东帝汶和尼泊尔等一些亚洲国家已废除死刑，但死刑仍是一个有争议的问题。许多人认为，鉴于可能存在错误定罪的情况，死刑的不可撤销性永远无法成为其适用的正当理由。菲律宾是1987年第一个废除死刑的亚洲国家，1994年恢复死刑后，该国拥有最多数量的强制死刑罪行（30项罪行）和符合死刑条件的罪行（22项罪行）记录。大多数死刑判决是基于证人证据做出的。虽然此类案件会自动接受最高法院的审查，但菲律宾的上诉程序并非旨在接受定罪后的证据，包括DNA证据。由于定罪后的DNA证据在美国推翻死刑判决方面具有令人信服的性质，不同团体主张在菲律宾使用该证据。在其中一个案件，即“人民诉雷纳尔多·德·维拉案”中，被告被控强奸其13岁的侄女，据称导致一名女婴出生，这种情况通常被称为“犯罪生父认定”。本文报告了在一个犯罪生父认定案件（人民诉雷纳尔多·德·维拉案）中使用16个短串联重复序列（STR）DNA标记进行首次定罪后DNA检测的结果，并讨论了这些结果对菲律宾刑事司法系统的影响。
