California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Medina, C081307 (Cal. App. 2017):
Whether a course of conduct is indivisible for purposes of section 654 depends on the intent and objective of the actor. If all the offenses are incidental to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of them, but not for more than one. (People v.
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Latimer, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 1208.) The defendant's intent and objective are factual questions for the trial court, and we uphold the trial court's finding, whether express or implied, if there is sufficient evidence to support it. (People v. Vang (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 912, 915-916.)
Here, the trial court expressly found that defendant "had the same intent and objective" in committing the attempted voluntary manslaughter as he did in committing the robbery. The People do not challenge that finding, and given the deference required by the applicable standard of review -- which is for substantial evidence to support the trial court's finding -- we have no basis for overturning that finding. Given the finding of a single criminal objective and intent, it was error for the trial court not to stay the sentence on the attempted voluntary manslaughter conviction. (People v. Alford (2010) 180 Cal.App.4th 1463, 1467-1473.) Accordingly, we will modify the judgment to stay execution of that sentence.
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