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Complex Crimes and Special Complex Crimes


What is a Complex Crime?
     Under Article 48 of  the Revised Penal Code, complex crimes, although two or more crimes are actually committed, they constitute only one crime in the eyes of the law as well as  in the conscience of the offender.

Two kinds of Complex Crimes
I. Compound Crime
     A single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies.
     Requisites:
     1. Only a single act is performed; and
     2. Single act produces:
           a. Two or more grave felonies;
           b. One or more grave and one or more less grave felonies; or
           c. Two or more less grave felonies.

II. Complex Crime Proper
     An offense is a necessary means for committing the other. The first offense must be consumated. All the offense are punishable under the same statute.

What is a Special Complex Crime?
     Those which are treated as single indivisible offense although comprising of more than one specific crime and with a specific penalty.
     These refers to two or more crimes that the law treats as a single indivisible and unique offense for being the product of a single criminal impulse.

Plurality of Crimes
     It consists of the successive execution by the same individual  of different criminal acts upon any of which no conviction has yet been declared.
     Kinds:
1. Formal or Ideal- one criminal liability
2. Real or Material- there are different crimes in law as well as in the conscience of the offender.

Continuous Crime
     A single crime consisting of a series of acts but all arising from one criminal resolution. The length of time in the commission is immaterial.
     A continuing crime is not a complex crime because the offender does not perform a single act, but a series of acts and one offense is not a necessary means for committing the other.

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