Error and/or relief
The trial court erred by imposing two concurrent sentences for firearm convictions based on the same, single act of possessing a firearm. We remand for resentencing.
First Holding:
The trial court imposed a middle term of four years for possession of a firearm. It then imposed concurrent sentences for carrying a loaded firearm and carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle, all committed while having a prior felony conviction.
This sentence violates section 654’s prohibition of multiple punishment for a single act or omission, or an indivisible course of conduct. All three convictions were based on a single possession or carrying of a single firearm on a single occasion and may be punished only once under section 654.
Authority:
PEN 654(a) [an act punishable in different ways by different provisions of law shall not be punished under more than one provision]
People v. Deloza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 585, 591
People v. Jones (2012) 54 Cal.4th 350, 357
Second Holding:
That the concurrent sentences imposed for counts 7 and 8 are served simultaneously with the sentence for count 6 is inconsequential. A concurrent sentence is still a punishment subject to section 654. In these circumstances, the trial court was required to impose one sentence and to stay the execution of the duplicative sentence.
Authority:
People v. Duff (2010) 50 Cal.4th 787, 796
People v. Mani (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 343, 380
Third Holding:
(Gary note: The opinion did not describe count 3 or what the oral pronouncement of sentence was for that count, but in the opinion’s disposition paragraph, the court included the following sentence: “The clerk of the superior court is also directed to correct the abstract of judgment to reflect the orally pronounced sentence on count 3.”
(That is the only reference to the abstract in the opinion. I include this as a “holding” because it represents yet another instance of where an abstract of judgment was apparently incorrect. The cases I have listed below are some of several cases that the court could have chosen to cite as authority for its order.
Authority:
People v. Mitchell (2001) 26 Cal.4th 181, 185
People v. Delgado (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1059, 1070
People v. Leon (2020) 8 Cal.5th 831, 855
In re Black (1967) 66 Cal.2d 881, 890
People v. Zackery (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 380, 385
People v. Farell (2002) 28 Cal.4th 381, 384, fn. 2