California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Bullock, A148543 (Cal. App. 2017):
The parties agree, and we concur, that the murder and torture of Father Freed were not accomplished by "a single physical act" but rather by a series of assaultive acts occurring close in temporal proximity. (People v. Corpening (2016) 2 Cal.5th 307, 313 [test for whether defendant committed "a single physical act" under 654 "depends on whether some action the defendant is charged with having taken separately completes the actus reus for each of the relevant criminal offenses."].) Therefore, the issue is whether substantial evidence in the record supports the conclusion that defendant "harbored 'multiple criminal objectives,' which were independent of and not merely incidental to
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each other," such that "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. Harrison, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 335.)
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