What is the test for determining whether a course of conduct is divisible and therefore gives rise to more than one act within the meaning of section 654 of the California Criminal Code?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Peters, G055800 (Cal. App. 2019):

incidental to them. "The determination of whether there was more than one objective is a factual determination, which will not be reversed on appeal unless unsupported by the evidence presented at trial." (People v. Saffle (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 434, 438.)

"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. If all the offenses were incident to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of such offenses but not for more than one." (Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19.)

"It is defendant's intent and objective, not the temporal proximity of his offenses, which determine whether the transaction is indivisible. [Citations.] We have traditionally observed that if all of the offenses were merely incidental to, or were the means of accomplishing or facilitating one objective, defendant may be found to have harbored a single intent and therefore may be punished only once. [Citation.] [] If, on the other hand, 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. Harrison (1989) 48 Cal.3d 321, 335.)

To convict defendant of false imprisonment, the jury necessarily found: (1) defendant intentionally restrained, confined, or detained someone by violence or menace, and (2) defendant made that person stay somewhere against the person's will. ( 237.) To convict defendant of making criminal threats, the jury necessarily found: (1) defendant willfully threatened to commit a crime that would result in death or great bodily injury; (2) defendant made the threat with the specific intent that it would be taken as a threat; (3) the threat was so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific that it conveyed to the person threatened a gravity of purpose and immediate prospect of execution; (4) the person threatened was in actual fear of their own or their family's

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safety; and (5) that fear was reasonable under the circumstances. (People v. Toledo (2001) 26 Cal.4th 221, 227-228.)

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