CA junks long-delayed cases vs Lenny Villa hazing suspects

The Court of Appeals has dismissed the homicide cases that have dragged on for more than two decades against three suspects in the death of Ateneo de Manila University student and fraternity hazing victim Leonardo “Lenny” Villa in 1991.

In a Feb. 13 decision, the appellate court’s Eighth Division granted the petition of Stanley Fernandez, Florentino Ampil and Noel Cabangon to reverse a ruling of a Caloocan City Regional Trial Court judge that denied their motion to have the cases dismissed in 2012.

The CA decision, written by Justice Nina Antonio-Valenzuela, said Judge Adoracion Angeles committed grave abuse of discretion in not recognizing the petitioners’ right to speedy trial.

It noted that the initial trial of the three men began only in March 2005, 11 years after their arraignment in November and December 1993. The ruling described the delays as “unreasonable, vexatious and oppressive.”

Fernandez, Ampil and Cabangon were among the 35 members of the Aquila Legis Juris fraternity who were initially tagged by the police in the Villa case. They were not among the 26 men who were subsequently arraigned and found guilty of homicide in November 1993 by the Caloocan RTC.

Of the 26 who were convicted, 19 were acquitted on appeal by the CA, whose ruling was later affirmed by the Supreme Court. The high tribunal further modified the ruling in 2012 by downgrading the crime of five convicts to reckless impudence resulting in homicide.

Villa, an Ateneo Law School freshman, died of serious injuries on Feb. 10, 1991, after undergoing initiation rites with seven other Aquila neophytes in a house in Caloocan.

Six more hazing-related deaths took place after Villa’s death, leading to the passage of the Anti-Hazing Law in 1995.