California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Angol, B259874 (Cal. App. 2015):
Alternatively, "if the evidence discloses that a defendant entertained multiple criminal objectives which were independent of and not merely incidental to each other, the trial court may impose punishment for independent violations committed in pursuit of each objective even though the violations shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct. . . . Each case must be determined on its own facts. . . . The question whether the defendant entertained multiple criminal objectives is one of fact for the trial court, and its findings on this question will be upheld on appeal if
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there is any substantial evidence to support them." (People v. Liu (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1119, 1135-1136, citations omitted.)
"[M]ultiple sex acts committed on a single occasion can result in multiple statutory violations. Such offenses are generally 'divisible' from one another under section 654, and separate punishment is usually allowed." (People v. Scott (1994) 9 Cal.4th 331, 344, fn. 6.) In the context of sex crimes, "a 'defendant who attempts to achieve sexual gratification by committing a number of base criminal acts on his victim is substantially more culpable than a defendant who commits only one such act.' [Citation.]" (People v. Harrison, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 336.)
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