Can a defendant be sentenced to two separate sentences under section 654 of the California Criminal Code?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Ureno, E060160 (Cal. App. 2015):

"Section 654 precludes multiple punishment for a single act or omission, or an indivisible course of conduct. [Citations.] If, for example, a defendant suffers two convictions, punishment for one of which is precluded by section 654, that section requires the sentence for one conviction to be imposed, and the other imposed and then stayed." (People v. Deloza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 585, 591-592.) The purpose of section 654 is to ensure that punishment is commensurate with a defendant's culpability. (People v. Meeks (2004) 123 Cal.App.4th 695, 705.)

In Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19, disapproved on another ground as stated in People v. Correa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 331, 334, 338, 341-342, the court

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explained where a course of conduct violates more than one statute but is part of an indivisible transaction with a single intent or objective, section 654 applies, and the trial court may impose only one sentence. But where a defendant entertains multiple criminal objectives that are "independent and not incidental to each other," the court may impose separate punishment even where the violations were otherwise part of an indivisible course of conduct. (People v. Sok (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 88, 99.) "It is the defendant's intent and objective that determines whether the course of conduct is indivisible. [Citation.] Thus, ' "[i]f all of the offenses were merely incidental to, or were the means of accomplishing or facilitating one objective, [the] defendant may be found to have harbored a single intent and therefore may be punished only once." ' " (People v. Le (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 925, 931; see People v. Alford (2010) 180 Cal.App.4th 1463, 1466.)

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