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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — A regional trial court (RTC) in Olongapo City affirms the conviction of US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton for the killing of Filipino transgender woman, Jennifer Laude.
In a ruling dated Tuesday (March 29) the Olongapo RTC Branch 74 denied Pemberton's motion to have his conviction reversed. However, it reduced the maximum sentence to 10 years from 12. The court also denied him bail.
The court said state prosecutors presented enough evidence to show no other person, except Pemberton, could have killed Laude.
It especially gives weight to eye witness testimony that Pemberton was the last person seen with the victim before she was found dead.
On December 1 last year, the court found Pemberton guilty of homicide and was sentenced to 6 up to 12 years in prison.
Pemberton filed an appeal, insisting he should be acquitted.
He argued that the court failed to appreciate evidence showing another person killed Laude after Pemberton had left her in the motel room where they were staying.
In his motion for reconsideration, Pemberton also asked the court to clarify his sentence.
His lawyers said the maximum sentence should only be ten years considering the mitigating circumstances in their client's case.
In its 2015 ruling, the court noted two mitigating circumstances — first, passion and obfuscation, and second, intoxication.
Acting on passion and obfuscation essentially means that the crime was conducted out of impulse or rage and was not necessarily premeditated. In its guilty verdict last December, the court noted that Pemberton was "in the heat of passion" before he arm-locked Laude. The marine neither had full control of his faculties because he was drunk.
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Based on these mitigating circumstances, the court lowered the maximum sentence to ten years.
The decision says, Pemberton shall “suffer an indeterminate sentence of six (6) years of prision correccional as indeterminate minimum penalty and ten (10) years of prision mayor as indeterminate maximum penalty with full credit for the period of his preventive imprisonment pursuant to Article 29, Revised Penal Code."
The court also said that since he has already been convicted, Pemberton can no longer be presumed innocent. This removes his right to bail.
“Wherefore in view of the foregoing, the Partial Motion for Reconsideration of the decision promulgated on 01 December 2015 and the Motion to be Admitted to Bail pending motion for reconsideration are DENIED for lack of merit,” the court’s decision reads.
Pemberton and Laude rented a room at the Celzone Lodge in Olongapo City after a night of drinking on October 11, 2014.
Laude's dead body was discovered resting on the toilet bowl of the motel room that night.
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