Does section 654, subdivision (a) of the California Criminal Code, allow a single offender to be punished for a single crime committed against a multiple victim?

Section 654, subdivision (a) provides: "An act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law shall be punished under the provision that provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision. . . ." Accordingly, section 654 " ' "precludes multiple punishment for a single act or for a course of conduct comprising indivisible acts. Whether a course of criminal conduct is divisible . . . depends on the intent and objective of the actor." ' " (People v. Jones (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1143 (Jones).) If all of the offenses are incidental to a single objective, the court may punish the defendant for only one of them. (People v. Latimer (1993) 5 Cal.4th 1203, 1208.) Nevertheless, even though a defendant may have had a single objective during an indivisible course of conduct, the multiple victim exception to section 654 allows punishment of that defendant if he or she engaged in violent conduct that injured several victims. (People v. Champion (1995) 9 Cal.4th 879, 935; People v. Garcia (1995) 32

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