Short answer. No. Article 1024 makes the Civil Code's grounds of incapacity to inherit by will apply equally to intestate succession. Article 1032 lists those grounds, including a conviction for attempting the decedent's life. So a child convicted of trying to kill a parent is disqualified from inheriting from that parent, whether or not a will was ever made.
What the law says
Persons not incapacitated by law may succeed by will or ab intestato. The provisions relating to incapacity by will are equally applicable to intestate succession.
Civil Code, Article 1024 — Who May Succeed. Read the full provision →
The rule this article borrows
Article 1024's second sentence does the real work here: it takes every ground of incapacity written for testamentary succession and imports it wholesale into intestate succession. Nothing in the chapter on legal heirs needs to repeat those grounds — Article 1024 already tells the law to read them in. That single sentence is what keeps a convicted attacker from inheriting even when there is no will to interpret or contest.
What counts as an attempt on the decedent's life
Article 1032 sets out the specific acts that disqualify an heir, and an attempt against the life of the decedent — or of the decedent's spouse, descendants, or ascendants — is squarely on that list. A criminal conviction is the clearest proof of the ground, though the Civil Code does not require a conviction for every one of the listed grounds; some turn on the heir's own conduct rather than a judgment of guilt.
Disqualification is not automatic paperwork
Even though the ground exists in the law, someone still has to raise it — typically the other heirs, in the settlement or partition proceeding, by presenting the judgment of conviction or other proof of the disqualifying act. Until that happens, an unworthy heir is not barred from receiving a share merely because the ground theoretically applies; the exclusion has to be established in the proceeding that distributes the estate. A court will not raise the disqualification on its own initiative, so heirs who want a convicted relative excluded need to actually bring the issue forward rather than assume it enforces itself.
The decedent can still forgive it
Article 1033 excuses a ground of unworthiness if the decedent already knew about it and made no objection, or if the decedent later condones it in writing. Because that requires either advance knowledge or an express written act, silence years afterward is not, by itself, enough to erase the disqualification. The burden falls on whoever wants the convicted heir reinstated to produce that writing, not on the other heirs to disprove that forgiveness ever happened.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1024 — Who May Succeed
- Civil Code, Article 1032 — Unworthiness to Succeed
- Civil Code, Article 1025 — The Heir Must Be Living at the Opening