Can a defendant be punished for multiple violations of section 654 of the California Penal Code?

Section 654, subdivision (a), provides, "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 a single physical act that violates different provisions of law." (People v.

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Jones (2012) 54 Cal.4th 350, 358.) "'"Whether a course of criminal 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. If all of the offenses were incident to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of such offenses but not for more than one."'" (People v. Capistrano (2014) 59 Cal.4th 830, 885.) "'If [the] defendant harbored "multiple criminal objectives," which were independent of and not merely incidental to each other, he may be punished for each statutory violation committed in pursuit of each objective, "even though the violations shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct."'" (People v. Rodriguez (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 1000, 1005.)

"'"The defendant's intent and objectives are factual questions for the trial court; [to permit multiple punishments,] there must be evidence to support [the] finding the defendant formed a separate intent and objective for each offense for which he was sentenced."'" (People v. Capistrano, supra, 59 Cal.4th at p. 886.) "The 'intent and objective' test is a rigorous one, however, since 'a "broad and amorphous" view of the single "intent" or "objective" needed to trigger the statute would impermissibly "reward the defendant who has the greater criminal ambition with a lesser punishment."'" (People v. Morelos (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 758, 769.)