California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Gesner, H044471 (Cal. App. 2019):
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." "Section 654 precludes multiple punishment for a single act or omission, or an indivisible course of conduct." (People v. Deloza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 585, 591.)
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" '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. Latimer (1993) 5 Cal.4th 1203, 1208.) "In such circumstances, the court must impose but stay execution of sentence on all of the convictions arising out of the course of conduct except for the offense with the longest sentence." (People v. McCoy (2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 1333, 1338.) "The failure of defendant to object on this basis in the trial court does not forfeit the issue on appeal." (Ibid.)
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