People v. CorpeningPeople v. Corpening
The relevant facts are not in dispute, and provided the basis for defendant‘s guilty plea. In the early morning hours of July 22, 2012, Walter Schmidt, Sr., and his son loaded their van with valuable coins they were planning to sell at a San Diego swap meet where Schmidt, a rare coin dealer, operated a booth. The van was parked in the driveway in front of Schmidt‘s home and contained roughly $70,000 worth of coins. With the van loaded, Schmidt‘s son went to lock up the house. Schmidt meanwhile got into the driver‘s seat and prepared to pull away. At that moment, a man approached the vehicle pointing a gun at Schmidt‘s face and yelling, “Get out of the car or I‘ll shoot you.” Schmidt complied. But as the man climbed into the vehicle, Schmidt tried unsuccessfully tо wrestle the gun away. The man again pointed the gun at Schmidt, who began retreating from the van. As the man climbed into the van a second time, Schmidt once again tried to stop the robbery, lunging for the gun. This time, however, the man quickly threw the vehicle into reverse gear and began pulling away. With the van rolling backwards, Schmidt grabbed onto the steering wheel. He was dragged approximately 18 feet down the driveway before he lost his grip and fell to the pavement. The man drove some 50 yards dоwn the street before picking up a confederate. Those two were then followed by several other accomplices to an apartment complex where the group began unloading the boxes of coins. In one of the trailing vehicles was defendant Tory J. Corpening, Jr., who, according to one accomplice, had hatched the scheme to rob Schmidt after following him home one day from the swap meet.
After Schmidt called the policе, officers arrested some members of the group near the apartment complex. Corpening, who had fled when the police arrived, eventually turned himself in. Corpening pleaded guilty to carjacking (
In its sentencing brief, the prosecution recommended that the trial court stay the robbery sentence, because –– in the prosecution‘s view –– section 654 barred punishment for the robbery charge in addition to punishment for the carjacking charge. The trial court rejected this recommendation. Without any elaboration, the court concluded based on the foregoing facts that “[the robbery] is a separate offense [from] the carjacking.” The court sentenced Corpening to six years and eight months in prison — a term that included five years for carjacking plus a consecutive one-year term for robbery. Corpening also received eight months for witness intimidation. Pursuant to section 654, the court stayed the remaining punishments for assault with a deadly weapon and receiving stolen property.
On appeal, Corpening argued that section 654 barred his consecutive one-year term for robbery, because the robbery and carjacking comprised a single physical act. The Court of Appeal was not persuaded. Relying on Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19 (Neal), the appellate court understood the inquiry to turn on the intent or objective of the actor — specifically, whether the defendant‘s course of conduct reflected but one objective. The Court of Appeal then held that the trial court made an implicit finding that the robbery and
Corрening petitioned for review. He claimed that our more recent decision in People v. Jones (2012) 54 Cal.4th 350 (Jones), which the parties had failed to cite and the Court of Appeal apparently did not consider, required that the punishment for his robbery conviction be stayed. Jones clarified that the inquiry into whether a defendant‘s criminal conduct reflects a single intent or objective, pursuant to Neal, is relevant only after it has been determined that such conduct involves more than “a single act.” (Id. at pp. 359-360.) We therefore granted review and transferred the matter back to the appellate court so it could apply the Jones framework. The Court of Appeal again affirmed Corpening‘s sentence. The court explained that Jones involved “one act of possessing one firearm” but here there were “several discrete physical acts” necessary to complete the crimes of robbery and carjacking: “forcing the victim out of the car, struggling with him as he attempted to resist, then again struggling with the victim, [and] then driving off with the van.” Having determined this to be a course of conduct case, rather than a single physical act case, the appellate court applied “the multiple objectives test” from Neal. The Court of Appeal then found “sufficient evidence in this record from which the [trial] court could have concluded there were two intents, close in time” — one intent to steal the coins and a second to take the van for purposes of esсaping the scene. We granted review once more.
II. DISCUSSION
Whethеr a defendant may be subjected to multiple punishment under section 654 requires a two-step inquiry, because the statutory reference to an “act or omission” may include not only a discrete physical act but also a course of conduct encompassing several acts pursued with a single objective. (See Neal, supra, 55 Cal.2d at p. 19; People v. Beamon (1973) 8 Cal.3d 625, 639.) We first consider if the different crimes were completed by a “single physical act.” (Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 358.) If so, the defendant may not be punished more than once for that аct. Only if we conclude that the case involves more than a single act — i.e., a course of conduct — do we then consider whether that course of conduct reflects a single “intent and objective” or multiple intents and objectives. (Id. at p. 359; see also People v. Mesa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 191, 199 (Mesa) [“Our case law has found multiple criminal objectives to be a predicate for multiple punishment only in circumstances that involve, or arguably involve, multiple acts“].) At step one, courts examine the facts of the case to determine whether multiple convictions are based upon a single physical act. (See Mesa, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 196.) When those facts are undisputed — as they are here — the application of section 654 raises a question of law we review de novo. (See People v. Harrison (1989) 48 Cal.3d 321, 335 [“the applicability of [section 654] to conceded facts is a question of law“]; accord, People v. Perez (1979) 23 Cal.3d 545, 552, fn. 5.)
Precisely how to resolve whether multiple convictions are indeed based on a single physical act has often left courts with more questions than answers. (See Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 358 [acknowledging “that what is a single physical act might not always be easy to ascertain“].) Neither the text nor structure of section 654 resolves when exactly a single act begins or ends, for example, or how to take account of the fact that virtually any given physical action may, in principle, be divided into multiple subsets that each fit the colloquial definition of an “act.”
Because we had to survey some of this terrain in Jones to address a related question, we look to that case for guidance. The defendant in Jones had been sentenced concurrently for three crimes: “possession of a firearm by a felon,” “carrying a readily accessible concealed and unregistered firearm,” and “carrying an unregistered loaded firearm in public.” (Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 352.) We held that possessing a particular firearm on a single occasion constituted a single physical act that “may be punished only once under section 654.” (Id. at p. 357.) We did so because, as the prosecutor hаd acknowledged, ” ‘the same exact conduct’ ” accomplished the actus reus — or act requirement — for each of the relevant crimes. (Id. at p. 359; see Black‘s Law Dict. (10th ed. 2014) p. 44, col. 1 [defining “actus reus” as “[t]he wrongful deed that comprises the physical components of a crime“].) In particular, it was the defendant‘s possession of a specific firearm on a specific date that, according to the charging document, completed the actus reus fоr all three crimes. (See Jones, at p. 359 [“The record establishes that the jury convicted defendant of each crime due to his being caught with the gun in the car on May 26, 2008, not due to any antecedent possession. The amended information alleged that defendant committed all three crimes on or
Jones expressly overruled In re Hayes (1969) 70 Cal.2d 604 (Hayes). The defendant in Hayes had been sentenced for violating two different penal statutes: driving while intoxicated and driving with an invalid license. (Id. at p. 605.) We held that section 654 did not prohibit multiple punishment for the two crimes. (Hayes, 70 Cal.2d at p. 611.) In Jones, however, we found Hayes contrary to the plain language of section 654, which bars multiple punishment for any ” ‘act . . . that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law.’ ” (See Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 356.) Driving while intoxicated and driving while on an expired license, we еxplained, are a “single physical act.” (Id. at p. 355.) Because the same physical action — the defendant‘s driving — completed the actus reus of each charged crime, that action amounted to a single physical act under section 654.
A similar principle underlies our decision in Mesa, which is also instructive. What we held is that section 654 did not permit punishment for active participation in a street gang in addition to the defendant‘s permissible punishments for assault with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a felon. (Mesa, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 201.) We reached this conclusion because the crime of active participation in a street gang requires “willful promotion, furtherance, or assistance in felonious conduct by members of the gang.” (Id. at p. 200.) That crime was not completed until the defendant either shot the victims or possessed a firearm. (Ibid. [explaining that mere active participation in a gang and knowledge of the gang‘s pattern of criminal activity “do not complete the offense“].) The defendant‘s “shooting the victims or possessing a firearm,” we explained, “was the
These decisions reflect a common idea: Whether a defendant will be found to have committed a single physical act for purposes of section 654 depends on whether some action the defendant is charged with having taken separately сompletes the actus reus for each of the relevant criminal offenses. (See Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at pp. 359-360; Mesa, supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 200.) On these facts, the forceful taking of a vehicle on a particular occasion is a single physical act under section 654. The forceful taking of Schmidt‘s van, and the rare coins contained therein, completed the actus reus for robbery — the felonious taking of another‘s personal property by force.3 Precisely the same action, not a separate but rеlated one taken at a separate time or in a distinct fashion, was also the basis for the contention that the defendant completed the actus reus for carjacking — the felonious taking of another‘s motor vehicle by force.4 It was the same show of
Applying section 654 to similar facts, the Court of Appeal arrived at the same conclusion in Dominguez, supra, 38 Cal.App.4th 410. The victim there had parked his van near a restaurant where he had planned to eat. Suddenly, a man entered the van through the side sliding door. The assailant then grabbed the victim, pressed what felt to the victim like a gun against the back of his neck, and demanded he relinquish everything he had. After about five minutes, the victim handed over two rings and a chain before running away from the vehicle to call the police. The van was missing when the police arrived at the scene; it was later recovered less than a mile away. (Id. at pp. 414-415.)
A jury then convicted the defendant of both robbery and carjacking. (Dominguez, supra, 38 Cal.App.4th at p. 414.) The trial court imposed a
So too here. The forceful taking of Schmidt‘s van was a single physical act for purposes of section 654 because that act simultaneously accomplished the actus reus requirement for both the robbery and carjacking. It matters not that this act, just like the acts in Hayes and Dominguez, can be broken down into constituent parts. (See Black‘s Law Dict., supra, at p. 44, col. 1 [actus reus is
Nor does it matter that other criminal acts may have been committed in the course of this forceful taking. For example, the accomplice‘s forcing Schmidt out of the vehicle at gunpoint could, alone, give rise to criminal liability. Indeed, Corpening was also convicted of assault with a deadly weapon (
What is instead relevant in this case is that a single physical act served as the basis for convicting the defendant of two separate crimes. As a result, we do not reach step two of the section 654 analysis: whether the forceful taking involved multiple intents and objectives. (See Jones, supra, 54 Cal.4th at pp. 359-360; Mesa, supra, 54 Cal.4th at pp. 199-200; see also People v. Louie (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 388, 397 [“A single criminal act, even if committed incident to multiple objectives, may be punished only once“].) Rather, we must conclude that Corpening‘s one-year robbery sentence, which was based on the same act as his carjacking sentence, cannot stand. Section 654 requires that the robbery sentence be stayed. (See Dominguez, supra, 38 Cal.App.4th at p. 420.)6
A defendant may not be punished more than once for a single physical act that violates multiple provisions of the Penal Code. The charging document in this case identified the same forceful taking of a vehicle as the physical act completing the actus reus for both robbery and carjacking. Where the same physical act accomplishes the actus reus requirement for more than one crime, that single act cannot give rise to multiple punishment. Because that is precisely what happened here, Corpening‘s one-year robbery sentence must be stayed. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
CUÉLLAR, J.
WE CONCUR:
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J.
WERDEGAR, J.
CHIN, J.
CORRIGAN, J.
LIU, J.
KRUGER, J.