This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2016-01-11 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
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| Of necessity, the Court would remand the case to the lower courts for that purpose. But the propriety of remanding for the purpose of enabling the lower court to receive the newly-discovered evidence would inflict some degree of inefficiency on the administration of justice, because doing so would effectively undo or reopen the decision that is already on appeal.[14] That is a result that is not desirable. Hence, the Court has issued guidelines designed to balance the need of persons charged with crimes to afford to them the fullest opportunity to establish their defenses, on the one hand, and the public interest in ensuring a smooth, efficient and fair administration of criminal justice, on the other. The first guideline is to restrict the concept of newly-discovered evidence to only such evidence that can satisfy the following requisites, namely: (1) the evidence was discovered after trial; (2) such evidence could not have been discovered and produced at the trial even with the exercise of reasonable diligence; (3) the evidence is material, not merely cumulative, corroborative, or impeaching; and (4) the evidence is of such weight that it would probably change the judgment if admitted.[15] | |||||