Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2d/63/822.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 05:56:05+00:00

Document:
ELMER GORDON KELLETT, Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Respondent; THE PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.
Kenneth M. Wells, Public Defender, and Michael S. Sands, Deputy Public Defender, for Petitioner.
Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General, Doris H. Maier, Assistant Attorney General, and Edsel W. Haws, Deputy Attorney General, for Real Party in Interest.
On October 15, 1964, officers of the Sacramento Police Department, called to the scene of a disturbance, arrested petitioner who was standing on a public sidewalk with a pistol in his hand. On that day he was charged in the municipal court with committing a misdemeanor in violation of Penal Code section 417 (exhibiting a firearm in a threatening manner). On November 17, 1964, after a preliminary hearing at which it appeared that petitioner had been convicted of a felony, he was charged by information in the superior court with committing a felony in violation of Penal Code section 12021 (possession of a concealable weapon by a person who has been convicted of a felony).
On January 20, 1965, petitioner pleaded guilty to the charge of violating section 417 and was sentenced to 90 days in the county jail. On January 26, 1965, he moved in the superior court to dismiss the information charging a violation of section 12021 on the ground that it was barred by Penal Code section 654. fn. 1 The motion was denied, and petitioner now seeks a writ of prohibition to prevent his trial.
Petitioner contends that exhibiting and possessing the pistol constituted a single act and that therefore his prosecution for violating section 12021 is barred by his conviction of violating section 417. The Attorney General contends that even if the evidence at petitioner's preliminary hearing did not show possession apart from that involved in the section 417 violation, it is reasonable to infer that petitioner possessed the pistol for some time before exhibiting it and that at his trial a separate act of possession within the meaning of section 654 may be readily established.
 If needless harassment and the waste of public funds are to be avoided, some acts that are divisible for the purpose of punishment must be regarded as being too interrelated to permit their being prosecuted successively. When there is a course of conduct involving several physical acts, the actor's intent or objective and the number of victims involved, which are crucial in determining the permissible punishment, may be immaterial when successive prosecutions are attempted.
 We recognize that in many places felonies and misdemeanors are usually prosecuted by different public law offices and that there is a risk that those in charge of misdemeanor prosecutions may proceed without adequately assessing the seriousness of a defendant's conduct or considering whether a felony prosecution should be undertaken. When [63 Cal. 2d 828] the responsibility for the prosecution for the higher offense lies with a different public law office there is also the risk that a well advised defendant may plead guilty to a misdemeanor to foreclose a subsequent felony prosecution the misdemeanor prosecutor may be unaware of or may choose to ignore. Cases may also arise in which the district attorney is reasonably unaware of the felonies when the misdemeanors are prosecuted. In such situations the risk that there may be waste and harassment through both a misdemeanor and felony prosecution may be outweighed by the risk that a defendant guilty of a felony may escape proper punishment. Accordingly, in such cases section 654 does not bar a subsequent felony prosecution except to the extent that such prosecution is barred by that section's preclusion of multiple punishment.
 It bears emphasis, however, that the risk that a defendant guilty of a felony may escape proper punishment as a result of a conviction of a lesser offense is inherent in the preclusion by section 654 of multiple punishment.  Thus, if an act or course of criminal conduct can be punished only once under section 654, either an acquittal or conviction and sentence under one penal statute will preclude subsequent prosecution in a separate proceeding under any other penal statute. (People v. Tideman, 57 Cal. 2d 574, 587 [21 Cal. Rptr. 207, 370 P.2d 1007].) A conviction and sentence for petty theft would therefore bar a subsequent prosecution for burglary of premises entered with intent to commit that theft, since only a single act within the meaning of section 654 would be involved. (People v. McFarland, 58 Cal. 2d 748, 762 [26 Cal. Rptr. 473, 376 P.2d 449].) Essentially the same risk exists under the doctrine of double jeopardy, for a conviction or acquittal of a lesser included offense is a bar to a subsequent prosecution for the greater including offense. (People v. Greer, 30 Cal. 2d 589, 597 [184 P.2d 512]; People v. Krupa, 64 Cal. App. 2d 592, 598 [149 P.2d 416].) Accordingly, to avoid these risks it has always been necessary for prosecutors carefully to assess the seriousness of a defendant's criminal conduct before determining what charges should be prosecuted against him. By emphasizing the importance of such assessment, our holding herein will not open the door to the escape of defendants from punishment for serious crimes because of convictions or acquittals of closely related minor crimes. It should tend instead to reduce the [63 Cal. 2d 829] risk that they may escape such punishment by invoking the double jeopardy doctrine or the bar of section 654.
Let the peremptory writ of prohibition issue as prayed.
McComb, J., Peters, J., Tobriner, J., Peek, J., Mosk, J., and Burke, J., concurred.
FN 1. Section 654 provides: "An act or omission which is made punishable in different ways by different provisions of this code may be punished under either of such provisions, but in no case can it be punished under more than one; an acquittal or conviction and sentence under either one bars a prosecution for the same act or omission under any other."
FN 2. Since neither the offense proscribed by section 417, nor that proscribed by section 12021 is necessarily included within the other, either as defined in those sections or as pleaded against the petitioner (People v. Marshall, 48 Cal. 2d 394 [309 P.2d 456]), his prosecution for violating section 12021 is not barred by the prohibition against double jeopardy. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 13; Pen. Code, § 1023.) If one offense cannot be committed without necessarily committing another, the latter is a necessarily included offense. (People v. Greer, 30 Cal. 2d 589 [184 P.2d 512].) A violation of section 417 can be committed without violating section 12021, and a violation of section 12021 can be committed without violating section 417.
FN 3. Section 954 does not distinguish felonies and misdemeanors in its provisions for joinder. It therefore authorizes the joinder of a misdemeanor count and a felony count in a prosecution in the superior court. (People v. Bundte, 87 Cal. App. 2d 735, 744 [197 P.2d 823].) To the extent that it is inconsistent with this opinion, People v. Rodriguez, 202 Cal. App. 2d 191 [20 Cal. Rptr. 556], is disapproved.
FN 4. The needless harassment and waste of time and money of both the state and the defense arising from separate trials of closely related offenses is forcefully illustrated by People v. Majors, 65 Cal. 138 [3 P. 597, 52 Am.St.Rep. 295]. Majors counseled and advised another to commit a robbery during the course of which two persons were killed. Although the killings occurred at the same time and the same evidence established that Majors was guilty of murder for each killing, he was separately tried and convicted of each crime. At that time, however, section 954 of the Penal Code provided that an indictment or information could charge only one offense. Accordingly, to insure that Majors could be punished for both murders, it was necessary for the court to hold that Majors' trial and conviction for the murder of one victim did not bar an essentially repetitive trial and conviction for the murder of the other victim. Since section 954 now provides that an "accusatory pleading may charge two or more different offenses connected together in their commission," there is no longer any justification for repetitive trials such as those sanctioned in the Majors case.
FN 5. To the extent that People v. Wilson, 224 Cal. App. 2d 738 [37 Cal. Rptr. 42], is inconsistent with this conclusion it is disapproved.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 13
 § 1023
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.