De Lima seeks dismissal of last drug case

A demurrer to evidence was filed by former Senator Leila de Lima before a Muntinlupa court seeking to dismiss her last remaining drug case filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in February 2017.

Under the law, a demurrer to evidence is filed by the accused after the prosecution rests seeking to dismiss the case on the ground of insufficiency of evidence.

Based on a previous ruling of the Supreme Court, “Once a demurrer to evidence has been granted in a criminal case, the grant amounts to an acquittal. Any further prosecution for the same offense would violate the accused's constitutional right against double jeopardy.”

De Lima filed the demurrer to evidence with the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 206, which is handling case 17-167, one of the three cases filed by the DOJ in 2017.

The three cases originally charged De Lima and others of illegal drug trading but the DOJ later changed it to conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading. Two of the three cases were dismissed by Muntinlupa courts in 2021 and 2023.

The DOJ in 17-167, charged that between March 2013 and May 2015, De Lima, former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Franklin Jesus Bucayu, Ronnie Dayan, Joenel Sanchez, and Jose Adrian Dera used inmates at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa to sell and trade dangerous drugs using mobile phones and other electronic devices, and allegedly got the proceeds amounting to P70 million.

The Muntinlupa RTC Branch 206, last November, granted bail to De Lima and her co-accused paving the way for the former lawmaker to be released from detention after she posted bail amounting to P300,000 that was set by the court.

In the demurrer to evidence, De Lima said, “This Demurrer to Evidence seeks the dismissal of the charge against herein Accused without further need of the presentation of her evidence on the ground that based on the Prosecution's testimonial and documentary evidence duly admitted by the Honorable Court, the Prosecution has not only failed to present sufficient evidence that would sustain a judgment of conviction beyond reasonable doubt, it has more so failed to present strong evidence of the Accused's guilt, in accordance with the Order of the Honorable Court dated 10 November 2023 granting her motion for reconsideration of the previous Order dated 7 June 2023 denying her application for bail, thereby granting herein Accused as well as all her co-accused provisional liberty, pending the trial of this case.”

The motion emphasized that “what is significant in this case is that almost all of the most important evidence of the Prosecution have already been presented during the hearing for bail, and therefore passed upon by the Honorable Court in its 10 November 2023 Order declaring that the Prosecution's evidence is not strong, thereby granting herein Accused her application for bail.”

The motion said, the prosecution’s bail witnesses “have failed to prove the charge of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading among all the accused. They also failed to convey personal knowledge that herein Accused herself came into an agreement with her other co-accused and the Bilibid "drug lords" (whoever they may since not a single one of them is indicted in this case) to trade in illegal drugs using cellular phones and other gadgets and devices.”