*722 Opinion
Sometimes a single act constitutes more than one crime. When that happens, the person committing the act can be
convicted
of each of those crimes, but Penal Code section 654
1
prohibits
punishing
the person for more than one of them. When a defendant is convicted of two or more offenses for which section 654 prohibits multiple punishment, the trial court must impose sentence for one of them and stay imposition of sentence for the others. (See
People v. Norrell
(1996)
Defendant fired a gun at a moving car containing two occupants. For this act, a jury convicted him both of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle (§ 246) and assault with a firearm (§ 245, subd. (a)(2)). As to the assault charge only, the jury also found true a sentence-enhancing allegation that defendant personally used a firearm. (§ 12022.5, subd. (a).) The trial court sentenced defendant to prison for the middle term of five years for discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle and a consecutive term of four years, the middle term, for the section 12022.5, subdivision (a), enhancement, for a total sentence of nine years. It stayed the sentence for the assault charge. The Court of Appeal held that the court erred in imposing the firearm-use enhancement for the assault charge because the court could not impose an enhancement on a count for which sentence was stayed. It also held that on remand, the court must impose sentence for the charge of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle rather than for the assault charge. The correctness of this latter ruling is before us.
The punishment for violating section 246 is three, five, or seven years. The punishment for violating section 245, subdivision (a)(2), is two, three, or four years. Therefore, viewing these sections in isolation, section 246 provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment. However, the *723 section 246 count did not have attached to it the firearm-use enhancement of section 12022.5, subdivision (a). The section 245, subdivision (a)(2), count, did have that enhancement. 2 The firearm-use enhancement is three, four, or 10 years. Thus, the assault charge provides for a longer potential term of imprisonment if the firearm-use enhancement is included. The question before us, accordingly, is whether the court considers enhancements in determining which provision provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment.
The Court of Appeal held that the sentencing court may only consider the underlying offense, and must disregard enhancements, in determining the sentence that section 654 requires it to impose. We disagree. The statutory language seems clear. Nothing in that language excludes enhancements. A maximum sentence of 14 years (for the assault plus enhancement) provides a longer potential term of imprisonment than a maximum sentence of seven years (for discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle). Accordingly, the amended version of section 654 seems to require the court to impose sentence on the assault charge.
Even if we considered the statute less clear, a review of its purpose and legislative history supports this conclusion. (See
Estate of Griswold
(2001)
The Senate committee report stated that the bill would “require the judge to sentence a defendant to the crime for which he or she would receive the longest sentence,” and would therefore limit the sentencing court “to the longest
available
sentence.” (Sen. Com. on Public Safety, Rep. on Sen. Bill No. 914,
supra,
p. 2, italics added.) The same report stated that the “bill is in response to, and would overturn, the holding in
[Norrell, supra,
In this case, if defendant had been convicted solely of assault with a firearm, the court would have had to sentence him on that count, resulting in a potential term of imprisonment of up to 14 years (a maximum of four years for the substantive count plus a maximum of 10 years for the firearm-use enhancement). Defendant argues that because he was
also
convicted of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle, section 654 requires instead that he be sentenced for that crime, and thus the maximum sentence is seven years. He claims, in effect, that this second conviction requires him to receive a shorter sentence than a single conviction would have required. But the Legislature, in amending section 654, agreed with the
Norrell
dissent. “Additional criminality must never be rewarded.”
(Norrell, supra,
The Legislature was concerned with the actual overall sentence the defendant receives, not any portion of that sentence in isolation. Accepting defendant’s argument would mean that, in this case, the amendment to section 654 accomplished the opposite of what the Legislature intended. Norrell merely permitted the trial court to impose sentence for the less serious offense. Defendant argues that section 654 now requires the court to give him a shorter sentence than he might have received had he been convicted solely of the assault charge. We do not so interpret section 654.
We express no opinion on what sentence the trial court should impose within the range of options for the assault charge. We merely hold that *725 because that offense carries a longer potential term of imprisonment than defendant’s other conviction, the court is required on remand to impose sentence for that assault.
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand the matter for further proceedings consistent with our opinion.
George, C. J., Kennard, J., Baxter, J., Werdegar, J., Brown, J., and Moreno, J., concurred.
Notes
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.
The reason for this circumstance is readily apparent. Section 12022.5, subdivision (a)(1), provides generally that the enhancement does not apply if firearm use is an element of the underlying offense, which precludes its application to the crime of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle. However, subdivision (d) of section 12022.5 provides that a firearm-use enhancement may be imposed if the offense is a violation of section 245, subdivision (a)(2).