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• Justifying circumstances - Those where the act of a person is said to be in accordance with law, so that such person is deemed not to have transgressed the law and is free from both criminal and civil liability.
• Actor - Since there is no crime, there is no criminal; hence, he/she should not be called an “offender” but merely an
• Unlawful aggression - is a condition sine qua non for upholding the justifying circumstance of self-defense.
• Unlawful aggression - contemplates an actual, sudden, and unexpected attack, or imminent danger thereof, and not merely a threatening or intimidating attitude.
• Actual unlawful aggression - an attack with physical force or with a weapon which shows the positive determination of the aggressor to cause injury
• Imminent unlawful aggression - an attack that is impending or at the point of happening
• Retaliation - The aggression that was begun by the injured party already ceased to exist when the attack happened.
• Rational equivalence - determined by the emergency or imminent danger to which the person attacked is exposed, and the instinct, more than the reason, that moves or impels the defense.
• Rationale - When the person defending himself from the attack by another gave sufficient provocation to the latter, the former is also to be blamed for having given cause for the aggression.
• Provocation - any unjust or improper conduct or act of the offended party, capable of exciting, inciting, or irritating anyone
• Defense of person - It encompasses defense of one’s chastity or reputation.
• Defense of property - can be invoked if there is an attack upon the property, although it is not coupled with an attack upon the person of the owner of the premises, so long as all the elements for justification must however be present.
• Euthanasia - condemned by law although the motive may be to spare a hopeless patient from prolonged suffering. The killing could not be justified as avoidance of a greater evil since ending the life of the patient is an evil greater than his physical sufferings.
• Battery - any act of inflicting physical harm upon the woman or her child resulting to physical and psychological or emotional distress
• Battered woman - a scientifically defined pattern of psychological and behavioral symptoms found in women living in battering relationships as a result of cumulative abuse
• Tension building phase - Where minor battering occurs, it could be a verbal or slight physical abuse or another form of hostile behavior.
• Acute battering incident - Characterized by brutality, destructiveness, and sometimes death.
• Tranquil/loving phase - Characterized by guilt on the part of the batterer and forgiveness on the part of the woman.
• Exempting circumstances - not free from civil liability. complete absence of intelligence, freedom of action, or intent, or the absence of negligence on the part of the accused
• Imbecile - a mentally retarted person
• Idiot - a person whose mental age is two-year-old because his/her IQ is 0 to 19
• Imbecile - a person whose mental age is seven-year-old because his IQ is 20 to 49
• Feebleminded - a person whose mental age is 12-year-old because his IQ is 50 to 69
• Insanity - exists when there is complete deprivation of intelligence or freedom of the will
• Lucid - an insane person is lucid if his mind is unaffected by his mental illness and he is able to think clearly and logically
• Test of cognition - complete deprivation of intelligence in committing the crime
• Test of volition - total deprivation of freedom of the will
• Absolute exempting circumstance of minority - 15 years old under and if the child in conflict with the law is 15 years of age or below, lack of intelligence, which is the basis of the exempting circumstance of minority, is conclusively presumed
• Conditional exempting circumstance of minority - 15 years above and if the child in conflict with the law is above 15 years of age, lack of intelligence, which is the basis of the exempting circumstance of minority, is disputably presumed
• Discernment - it is the mental capacity to understand the difference between right and wrong as determined by the child’s appearance, attitude, comportment, and behavior not only before and during the commission of the offense but also during the trial
• Accident - an occurrence that happens outside the sway of one’s will; and although it comes about through some of act of one’s will, it lies beyond the bounds of humanly foreseeable consequences
• Actus me invito non est meus actus - An act done by me against my will is not my act
• Insuperable cause - it is some motive which has lawfully, morally, or physically prevented a person to do what the law commands
• Mitigating circumstances - Those which if present in the commission of the crime, do not entirely free the actor from criminal liability, but serve only to reduce the penalty.
• Grave offense - includes any act that is offensive to the offender or his relatives, and the same need not be unlawful. Mental agony.
• Passion or obfuscation - this is present when the crime was committed due to an uncontrollable burst of passion provoked by prior unjust or improper acts due to a legitimate stimulus so powerful as to overcome reason
• Confession - a statement made by an accused disclosing his guilt of the crime for which he is charged
• Aggravating circumstances - Those which, if attendant in the commission of the crime, serve to have the penalty imposed in its maximum period prescribed by law for the offense or change the nature of the offense.
• Treachery - it is present when the offender commits any of the crimes against persons, employing means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend directly and specially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising from the defense which the offended party might make
• Ignominy - it is a circumstance pertaining to the moral order, which adds disgrace and obloquy to the material injury caused by the crime