Opinion ID: 2600470
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Order of Sentences

Text: Defendant maintains that he was deprived of his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution because the trial court ordered that his determinate sentence of more than 59 years be served after execution of the death sentence. On November 7, 1989, the trial court sentenced defendant to death on his 12 convictions for first degree murder with special circumstances and a term of 59 years and 4 months on his 11 convictions of noncapital crimes. The court denied the prosecutor's request to stay the determinate sentence pending execution of the death sentence, but ordered that the determinate sentence be served after the death sentence was imposed. On November 15, 1989, the court modified the sentence nunc pro tunc to add: The sentences on the noncapital counts are ordered to be consecutive to, and to be served subsequent to, and only upon completion of, the death sentences enumerated above . . . . Citing our decision in People v. Price (1991) 1 Cal.4th 324, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 821 P.2d 610, defendant asserts that [w]hen a greater sentence is imposed upon a defendant, the lesser sentence must be stayed pursuant to the bar against multiple punishment under section 654. This is an overstatement. Section 654 bars multiple punishment for a single act or omission. Although it `literally applies only where such punishment arises out of multiple statutory violations produced by the same act or omission,' we have extended its protection `to cases in which there are several offenses committed during a course of conduct deemed to be indivisible in time. [Citation.]'[Citation.] ( People v. Oates (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1048, 1062, 12 Cal. Rptr.3d 325, 88 P.3d 56.) In the present case, the determinate sentences were imposed for crimes that were committed separately from, or involved victims other than, the murders for which defendant was sentenced to death. Section 654 does not, therefore, preclude imposition of both the determinate sentences and the death sentences. Defendant relies upon section 669, which states, in pertinent part: Whenever a person is committed to prison on a life sentence which is ordered to run consecutive to any determinate term of imprisonment, the determinate term of imprisonment shall be served first. . . . Although recognizing that the death sentence imposed here was not a life term, defendant argues that it was the functional equivalent of a life sentence in that appellant was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. By its terms, the portion of section 669 regarding imposition of a life sentence does not apply to a sentence of death. Accepting defendant's position would further delay for decades the imposition of the death sentences. This would be contrary to the declaration of legislative intent in section 190.6, subdivision (a), that the sentence in all capital cases should be imposed expeditiously. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in ordering the sentence of death be imposed prior to imposition of the determinate sentence on defendant's noncapital crimes.