Error and/or relief
Convicted of both murder and conspiracy to commit that murder, the court should have stayed the sentence for the conspiracy under section 654.
First Holding:
Section 654(a) provides in pertinent part that an act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law may be punished under either of such provisions, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision. The waiver doctrine does not apply to questions involving the applicability of section 654. Errors in the applicability of section 654 are corrected on appeal regardless of whether the point was raised by objection in the trial court or assigned as error on appeal.
Authority:
PEN 654
People v. Hester (2000) 22 Cal.4th 290, 295
Second Holding:
Section 654 precludes multiple punishments for a single act or indivisible course of conduct. Even concurrent sentences on convictions subject to section 654 are prohibited; the sentence on one of the two applicable convictions must be imposed and then stayed. The purpose of section 654 is to insure that a defendant’s punishment will be commensurate with his culpability.
Authority:
People v. Hester (2000) 22 Cal.4th 290, 294
People v. Deloza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 585, 591–592
People v. Latimer (1993) 5 Cal.4th 1203, 1211
Third Holding:
To determine the applicability of section 654, we first consider if the different crimes were completed by a single physical act. If so, the defendant may not be punished more than once for that act. Only if we conclude that the case involves more than a single act—i.e., a course of conduct—do we then consider whether that course of conduct reflects a single intent and objective or multiple intents and objectives.
Authority:
People v. Corpening (2016) 2 Cal.5th 307, 311
Fourth Holding:
If the convictions involve more than one act, the court reaches step two of the section 654 analysis: whether the course of conduct involved multiple intents and objectives. At step two, whether crimes arise from an indivisible course of conduct turns on the perpetrator’s intent and objective. 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. If, however, a defendant had several independent criminal objectives, he may be punished for each crime committed in pursuit of each objective, even though the crimes shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct. Whether a defendant harbored a single intent—and thus a single objective—is a factual question; the applicability of section 654 to settled facts is a question of law.
Authority:
People v. Harrison (1989) 48 Cal.3d 321, 335
People v. Perry (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 1521, 1525
Fifth Holding:
Because the conspiracy count in this case did not include a broader objective than the commission of the first degree murder, section 654 applied.
Authority:
People v. Dalton (2019) 7 Cal.5th 166, 247
People v. Lewis (2008) 43 Cal.4th 415, 439 [overruled on other grounds in People v. Black (2014) 58 Cal.4th 912, 919]
People v. Briones (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 524, 529
People v. Hernandez (2003) 30 Cal.4th 835, 866 [disapproved on other grounds in People v. Riccardi (2012) 54 Cal.4th 758, 824, fn. 32]
People v. Ramirez (1987) 189 Cal.App.3d 603, 615–616
Sixth Holding:
We acknowledge the trial court’s discretion under section 654 to choose which punishment to stay. Nevertheless, we conclude that a remand is unnecessary because the trial court’s decision on which punishment to stay would make no difference to the total sentence for the defendant. In this case, the sentence for the first degree murder count and the conspiracy to commit murder count are the same, 25 years to life. Under these circumstances, we will correct the trial court’s error by modifying the defendant’s sentence to stay the punishment on count 2, the conspiracy to commit murder conviction and the attached enhancements, to comply with section 654.
Authority:
People v. Mani (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 343, 379
People v. Cortez (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1223, 1237
People v. Hernandez (2003) 30 Cal.4th 835, 870 [disapproved on other grounds in People v. Riccardi (2012) 54 Cal.4th 758, 824, fn. 32]
People v. Calles (2012) 209 Cal.App.4th 1200, 1221
People v. Bey (2025) 108 Cal.App.5th 144, 167