Does section 654 of the California Criminal Code allow a defendant to serve consecutive terms for assault with a deadly weapon and shooting at an occupied motor vehicle?

extended to cases in which several offenses are committed during a course of conduct deemed to be indivisible in time. (People v. Palacios (2007) 41 Cal.4th 720, 727.)

However, the judicially created "multiple victim" exception to section 654 allows separate punishment for each crime of violence against a different victim, even if all crimes are part of an indivisible course of conduct with a single objective. (People v. Felix (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1618, 1630-1631 (Felix); see also People v. McFarland (1989) 47 Cal.3d 798, 803.)

In People v. Masters (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 1124 the court, citing the multiple victim exception, upheld consecutive terms for assault with a deadly weapon and shooting at an occupied motor vehicle, where the defendant fired shots into an automobile containing three passengers, but injured only one of them. The court held: "The preclusion of section 654's application does not depend upon a determination that the victims of one violent crime are entirely different from the victims of a second violent crime committed in the same course of conduct. As long as each violent crime involves at least one different victim, section 654's prohibition against multiple punishment is not applicable." (Masters, at p. 1128, italics added.)