Court Opinion

ID: 9549969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:27:02.224464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:06.466133
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J.
I concur with the lead opinion of Justice Mosk insofar as it does not alter the trial court’s traditional discretion to implement the statutory ban on multiple punishment, and finds no abuse of discretion here. (Pen. Code, § 654 (hereafter section 654).) I write separately, however, because I do not share the lead opinion’s apparent enthusiasm for the sentence imposed in this case. I also cannot ignore the powerful points made by Justice Arabian in his concurring and dissenting opinion concerning the sentencing anomalies that can arise under section 654, as interpreted in the lead opinion.
Much like Justice Mosk, I find no basis on which to infer wholesale restrictions on the authority of the trial court to select the appropriate punishment at this late date in section 654’s history. Nothing in the statutory *11language or case law clearly provides that, where a defendant is convicted of multiple crimes arising out of a single criminal act or transaction, the court is prohibited from staying sentence on a particular offense—the “most severely punishable” offense—as argued by the People. Nor has section 654 ever been read to require a sentencing court to honor the particular baseline punishment urged by Justice Arabian—the “mandatory] minimum” sentence applicable to any of the defendant’s convictions. (Conc. & dis. opn., post, at p. 14.)
However, I disagree with any implication in the lead opinion that the only reasonable sentence these defendants could have received is the one imposed by the trial court. Another sentencer familiar with the record and imposing punishment in the first instance could reasonably conclude this case involved more than a mere “robbery by youthful defendants.” (Lead opn., ante, at p. 8.) Defendants approached the victim in a parking lot around midnight, forcibly kidnapped him in his own car, held a gun to his head, and robbed him of jewelry and cash. The trial court could properly have determined that the crime was exceptionally dangerous and well planned, that each defendant had previously committed several other crimes of increasing seriousness, and that imposition of a life term for the kidnapping for robbery was appropriate notwithstanding defendants’ youth.
But such a determination is not ours to make. Here, the court made clear at the sentencing hearing that it heard the evidence introduced at trial, observed defendants in court, and read the probation reports and related evaluations prepared by the youth authorities. After weighing the sentencing alternatives and considering the “totality of the circumstances,” the court stayed sentence on the kidnapping-for-robbery count for both defendants under section 654, and imposed the “maximum sentences possible under the law” for their other convictions. We cannot say this determination constituted an abuse of discretion as a matter of law.
Nevertheless, I agree with Justice Arabian that the lack of any express limits on the trial court’s discretion under section 654 may produce consequences which the Legislature did not anticipate and which it may wish to prevent in the future. The purpose of the statute is to ensure that a criminal defendant does not receive excessive punishment. Yet, as so forcefully demonstrated by Justice Arabian and reflected by the facts of this case, a defendant who is convicted of multiple crimes carrying different punishments may receive a more lenient sentence by virtue of section 654 than he could have received had he only committed and been convicted of the offense carrying a punishment greater than that ultimately imposed by the court. The Legislature could reasonably conclude that such a scenario results in a sentencing windfall that should not be tolerated in any case.
*12I also agree with both Justice Mosk and Justice Arabian that nothing precludes the Legislature from amending the statute in the manner urged by either the People or Justice Arabian. (See lead opn., ante, at p. 9; conc. & dis. opn., post, at p. 23.) As far as I can discern, the ban on multiple punishment imposed by section 654 and applied here is not constitutionally compelled. (See Missouri v. Hunter (1983) 459 U.S. 359, 368-369 [74 L.Ed.2d 535, 543-544, 103 S.Ct. 673] [double jeopardy principles do not preclude imposition, in a single trial, of “cumulative” punishments for separate convictions based on the same act or transaction where the Legislature clearly intends such a result]; People v. Tideman (1962) 57 Cal.2d 574, 578, 585 [21 Cal.Rptr. 207, 370 P.2d 1007] [section 654 is not based on, or similar to, double jeopardy principles].)
Just as the Legislature could presumably repeal the statute altogether, so too may it amend the statute to ensure that a defendant convicted of multiple crimes does not receive more lenient treatment by virtue of section 654 than he could have received if the statute did not apply. I defer to the Legislature in determining whether reevaluation of the trial court’s discretion under section 654 is necessary in light of today’s decision.