California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Williams, C078843 (Cal. App. 2017):
" '[T]he purpose of section 654 "is to insure that a defendant's punishment will be commensurate with his culpability." ' [Citation.] 'It is [the] defendant's intent and objective, not temporal proximity of his offenses, which determine whether the transaction is indivisible.' [Citation.] ' "The defendant's intent and objective 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." ' [Citation.]" (People v. Capistrano (2014) 59 Cal.4th 830, 886.)
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