California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Cdiaz, F064090, F064366 (Cal. App. 2014):
"Section 654 precludes multiple punishment for a single act or indivisible course of conduct punishable under more than one criminal statute. Whether a course of conduct is divisible and therefore gives rise to more than one act within the meaning of section 654 depends on the 'intent and objective' of the actor. [Citation.] If all of the offenses are incident to one objective, the court may punish the defendant for any one of the offenses, but not more than one. [Citation.] If, however, the defendant had multiple or simultaneous objectives, independent of and not merely incidental to each other, the defendant may be punished for each violation committed in pursuit of each objective even though the violations share common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct. [Citation.]" (People v. Cleveland (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 263, 267-268.)
Whether the defendant possessed multiple objectives and intents within the meaning of section 654 is a factual question. We will uphold a trial court's explicit or implicit finding if it is supported by substantial evidence. The trial court's determination is viewed in the light most favorable to the People and we presume the existence of every fact that could reasonably be deduced from the evidence. (People v. Jones (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1143.)
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