When a defendant is convicted of multiple crimes arising from the same act or omission under Section 654, subdivision (a) of the California Criminal Code, can the sentence for one of the crimes be stayed?

Section 654, subdivision (a) provides in pertinent part, "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." When a defendant is convicted of multiple offenses arising from the same act or omission, " '[e]xecution of the sentence for one of the offenses must be stayed.' [Citations.]" (People v. Mesa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 191, 195.) The statute applies not only to a single physical act but to "an indivisible course of conduct." (People v. Le (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 925, 931 (Le).) "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, defendant may be found to

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have harbored a single intent and therefore may be punished only once." ' [Citations.]" (Ibid.) On the other hand, "[w]here a defendant entertains multiple criminal objectives independent of and not merely incidental to each other, he may be punished for more than one crime even though the violations share common acts or are parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct." (People v. Blake (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 509, 512.)