California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Gomez, B277856 (Cal. App. 2017):
Section 654, subdivision (a), states: "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." The statute " 'prohibits multiple punishment . . . for two crimes arising from a single indivisible course of conduct in which the defendant had only one criminal intent or objective. [Citation.] Thus: "If all of the crimes were merely incidental to, or were the means of accomplishing or facilitating one objective, a defendant may be punished only once.' " (People v. Powell (2011) 194 Cal.App.4th 1268, 1296.)
"We review under the substantial-evidence standard the court's factual finding, implicit or explicit, of whether there was a
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