Attempted, Frustrated, and Consummated Stages

Operative Meaning Under Article 6

Article 6 of the Revised Penal Code classifies felonies according to the point reached by the offender in the execution of the criminal design: attempted, frustrated, and consummated. The classification matters because the stage fixes the extent of criminal liability, affects the imposable penalty, and identifies whether the law punishes an incomplete criminal act.

A felony is consummated when all the elements necessary for its execution and accomplishment are present. A felony is frustrated when the offender performs all acts of execution that would produce the felony as a consequence, but the felony is not produced by causes independent of the offender's will. A felony is attempted when the offender commences the commission of the felony directly by overt acts and does not perform all acts of execution because of a cause or accident other than spontaneous desistance.

The stage is determined by the statutory definition of the felony, the acts actually performed, the result legally required, and the reason why the intended felony was not completed. The offender's ultimate purpose is relevant to intent, but consummation depends on the elements of the crime, not on whether the offender achieved every personal objective connected with it.

Attempted Felony

An attempted felony exists when the criminal design has moved from mere preparation into execution, but the offender has not yet performed all acts needed to bring about the felony. The law punishes the danger created by direct execution, not mere evil thought, planning, or remote preparation.

Requisites

1. The offender has a criminal intent to commit a particular felony.
2. The offender commences the commission of that felony directly by overt acts.
3. The overt acts are connected with the intended felony by immediate and natural relation, not merely by suspicion or preparation.
4. The offender does not perform all acts of execution that should produce the felony.
5. The non-performance is due to a cause or accident other than the offender's spontaneous desistance.

The overt act must be external, physical, and sufficiently proximate to the felony intended. It must reveal the beginning of execution, not merely the means of getting ready. Buying a weapon, watching the victim's routine, or going near the place of the crime may show preparation; aiming and firing at the intended victim, reaching into another's pocket to take property, or forcing open a door to steal may show execution, depending on the surrounding facts.

The act must also identify the felony intended. If the facts do not show whether the act was directed to homicide, physical injuries, robbery, theft, rape, or another offense, liability for an attempted felony cannot rest on speculation. Intent may be inferred from the weapon used, the words spoken, the manner of attack, the part of the body aimed at, the relationship of the parties, prior threats, and the acts before, during, and after the incident.

Attempted felony is present when the offender is stopped while still within the stage where further acts are needed. Thus, a missed shot, a parried stab, a failed entry before property is taken, or an interrupted assault before the legally required contact may constitute an attempt if the acts are direct and the intent is proven.

Frustrated Felony

A frustrated felony exists when the offender has passed the point of incomplete execution by performing all acts that would ordinarily produce the felony, but the felony is not produced because of causes independent of the offender's will. The offender has done everything believed necessary to accomplish the crime; the law treats the failure of the result as accidental or externally caused, not as a lack of execution.

Requisites

1. The offender performs all acts of execution.
2. The acts performed would produce the felony as a consequence in the ordinary course of events.
3. The felony is not produced.
4. The failure of production is due to causes independent of the offender's will.

The phrase all acts of execution does not mean every act the offender wished to do. It means every act legally and naturally necessary, under the means chosen, to produce the felony charged. If a necessary act remains to be done by the offender, the stage remains attempted. If all necessary acts have been done and only the result is missing, the stage may be frustrated.

In crimes against persons involving intent to kill, frustrated homicide or frustrated murder generally requires that the offender inflicted a wound or injury sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course, but death was prevented by timely medical attendance, effective resistance, physical constitution, or another independent cause. A superficial, non-mortal, or deflected wound usually indicates attempted homicide or murder if intent to kill is otherwise established.

The independent cause must be outside the offender's own free and voluntary desistance. Examples include the victim's escape, intervention by third persons, failure of a weapon after execution has sufficiently begun, prompt medical treatment, discovery by authorities, or the absence of the expected result despite completed acts. If the offender himself voluntarily stops before completing the acts of execution, the rules on spontaneous desistance govern instead.

Consummated Felony

A felony is consummated when the elements required by law for its execution and accomplishment are complete. The required point of completion differs by felony. Some crimes are consummated by a result, such as death in homicide. Others are consummated by a prohibited act, such as unlawful taking in theft or the making of a false narration in a public document when the law treats the act itself as punishable.

Consummation does not require that the offender profit, escape, enjoy the proceeds, conceal the crime, or complete all intended collateral acts. A thief who is immediately caught after taking possession may still commit consummated theft. A victim who dies after medical treatment may still be the subject of consummated homicide or murder if the unlawful act caused the death. A document offense may be consummated even if no private person has yet relied on the document, where damage is not an element of the felony as defined.

The decisive inquiry is always the legal element that completes the crime. If the felony requires a specific harmful result, the result must occur for consummation. If the felony is complete upon the commission of the prohibited act, the absence of further damage, gain, or success does not reduce the stage.

Subjective Phase and Objective Phase

The subjective phase is the portion of execution beginning from the first direct overt act up to the point where the offender still has control over whether to continue performing the acts necessary to produce the felony. If the offender is stopped by an external cause before passing this phase, the felony is attempted.

When the offender has performed all acts of execution, the subjective phase has been passed. What remains is the production of the result required by law. If the result does not occur because of causes independent of the offender's will, the felony is frustrated, provided the felony admits of a frustrated stage.

The subjective phase also explains spontaneous desistance. Before all acts are performed, the offender may still abandon the criminal design. After all acts are performed, desistance is no longer legally available as to the intended felony because the offender has already placed the result beyond his voluntary control.

Spontaneous Desistance

Spontaneous desistance is the offender's free and voluntary abandonment of the criminal purpose before performing all acts of execution. Its effect is to prevent liability for the attempted felony, because the law treats the incomplete execution as voluntarily renounced before the felony becomes punishable as an attempt.

Desistance must be voluntary, not compelled by fear of detection, resistance, lack of opportunity, arrival of police, alarm raised by bystanders, physical impossibility, or failure of the chosen means. If the offender stops only because continuation has become unsafe, difficult, or impossible, the interruption is an external cause and the stage remains attempted.

Desistance does not erase liability for crimes already produced by the acts performed. If the offender voluntarily abandons a killing but has already inflicted physical injuries, he may still be liable for the consummated physical injuries. If he breaks a door, threatens a person, or unlawfully enters a dwelling before desisting from theft or robbery, the prior completed offenses may remain punishable if their elements are present.

Comparison of the Three Stages

Intent and the Nature of the Felony

The stages of execution apply most naturally to intentional felonies committed by dolo, because attempt and frustration require a criminal purpose directed toward a felony. Culpable felonies by negligence, imprudence, lack of foresight, or lack of skill are ordinarily punished according to the harmful result actually produced, not according to attempted or frustrated stages.

Intent is especially important when the completed result is absent. In an incomplete killing, the prosecution must establish intent to kill; otherwise, the acts may amount only to physical injuries, unjust vexation, threats, alarm and scandal, or another offense supported by the facts. Intent to kill may be inferred from deadly means, deliberate attack on a vital part, repeated blows, prior threats, treachery, or conduct showing a determined purpose to end life.

Not every felony admits of all three stages. The statutory definition may make the crime complete upon a single act, upon the slightest prohibited contact, upon possession, upon acceptance, or upon publication. Where the law treats the act itself as the completed offense, there may be no frustrated stage because there is no interval between complete execution and legal consummation.

Felonies With No Practical Frustrated Stage

Some felonies are commonly treated as having no frustrated stage because the act that would complete execution also consummates the crime. The absence of a frustrated stage does not mean there can never be an attempt; it means that once the legally decisive act occurs, the felony is already consummated.

• Theft: Theft is consummated upon unlawful taking, which means the offender acquires possession or control of the personal property, however brief. Ability to freely dispose of the property is not an element. If the offender is stopped before gaining possession or control, the stage may be attempted theft; once possession is acquired, the crime is consummated.
• Rape by sexual intercourse: The offense is consummated by the slightest penetration. There is no frustrated stage because the minimum penetration completes the felony, while absence of penetration despite direct overt acts may amount to attempted rape if intent and force, threat, intimidation, or other statutory circumstances are present.
• Arson: Arson is generally consummated when a part of the property intended to be burned is actually burned or charred. If the offender applies fire but no burning of the property occurs, the offense may be attempted arson. Once burning sufficient to satisfy the law occurs, the crime is consummated even if the fire is immediately extinguished.
• Formal felonies: Crimes such as certain falsifications, oral defamation, or offenses consummated by acceptance, publication, entry, or making of a prohibited statement may not have a frustrated stage when the law completes the offense upon the act itself.

These classifications must yield to the exact statutory language. If a special penal law expressly punishes attempts, preparatory acts, possession, proposal, or other incomplete conduct, the statutory formulation controls.

Distinguishing Attempted Felony From Preparatory Acts

Preparation consists of acts that equip, position, or arrange the offender for possible commission of a crime. Execution consists of acts that directly begin the commission of the felony itself. The difference is not measured by time or distance alone, but by the immediate connection between the act and the felony intended.

Possessing a weapon may be preparation for homicide; pointing and firing it at the victim begins execution. Bringing tools near a building may be preparation for theft or robbery; forcing the lock, entering to take property, or reaching for the property may begin execution. Making a false plan to deceive may be preparation for estafa; using the deceit and causing or nearly causing delivery of property moves the act toward execution, subject to the elements of the particular fraud charged.

Preparatory acts may still be punishable when the law makes them separate offenses, such as unlawful possession of instruments or substances, conspiracy or proposal in crimes where specially penalized, or threats and intimidation that independently satisfy a penal provision. Their punishability then comes from the separate law, not from the attempted stage of the intended felony.

Distinguishing Frustrated Felony From Attempted Felony

The controlling question is whether the offender has already performed all acts that should produce the felony. If an essential act remains to be done by the offender, the felony is attempted. If the offender has completed the execution and only the legal result is missing, the felony is frustrated.

In a shooting with intent to kill, firing and missing because the victim ducks is ordinarily attempted homicide or murder because no injury capable of producing death has been inflicted. Firing and inflicting a mortal wound that would have caused death without timely surgery may be frustrated homicide or murder. Firing and causing death is consummated homicide or murder, subject to qualifying or aggravating circumstances.

In poisoning, the stage depends on the acts completed and the required result. Merely preparing poison may be preparation. Placing poison where the victim must still choose whether to ingest it may be attempted if the act is sufficiently direct and the victim does not consume it. Causing the victim to ingest a lethal dose, followed by survival due to medical intervention, may be frustrated killing. Death from the poison consummates the killing.

Impossible Crime and Incomplete Execution

An impossible crime under Article 4 is not merely a failed attempt. It exists when the offender performs an act that would be an offense against persons or property were it not for the inherent impossibility of accomplishment or the employment of inadequate or ineffectual means, provided the act is not otherwise punishable as another offense.

The difference lies in the source of failure. In an attempted felony, the intended crime is possible, but execution is interrupted or incomplete. In a frustrated felony, the intended crime is possible and execution is complete, but the result is prevented by an independent cause. In an impossible crime, completion is impossible from the beginning because of the object, the factual situation, or the means used.

The classification matters because impossible crime is punished by its own rule, not by the ordinary scale for attempted or frustrated felonies. If the acts actually constitute another punishable offense, liability attaches for that offense rather than for impossible crime.

Effect on Penalty and Liability

The Code generally punishes the principal in a frustrated felony one degree lower than the penalty prescribed for the consummated felony, and the principal in an attempted felony two degrees lower, unless a specific provision fixes a different penalty. The degree reduction is applied before the proper period is selected, and participation by accomplices or accessories is considered under the separate rules on persons criminally liable.

Qualifying and aggravating circumstances may still affect an attempted or frustrated felony when the facts supporting them are present. Treachery, evident premeditation, abuse of superior strength, dwelling, nighttime, or other circumstances do not require consummation if they attended the execution of the incomplete felony and are legally applicable to the offense charged.

Civil liability may also arise from the damage actually caused, even when the intended felony is not consummated. The offender may be liable for medical expenses, damaged property, lost earnings, or other proven consequences of the acts committed, without converting the incomplete felony into a consummated one.

Practical Classification Method

Begin with the felony charged and identify the element that legally completes it. Then determine the offender's intent, the direct acts performed, whether all acts of execution were completed, whether the required result occurred, and why the execution or result failed.

If the acts are only preparatory, there is no attempted felony unless a separate law punishes them. If direct overt acts began but execution was cut short by an external cause, the felony is attempted. If execution was complete but the result failed through an independent cause, the felony is frustrated, provided that felony admits of frustration. If all statutory elements are present, the felony is consummated.

The final classification must be tied to the legal definition of the offense, not to labels such as serious, unsuccessful, interrupted, or nearly completed. A serious but incomplete attack may still be attempted; a brief possession may already consummate theft; a slight penetration may consummate rape; and a fatal result may consummate homicide even if the offender did not achieve any further objective.