Court Opinion

ID: 9793003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:40:38.918929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:02:25.890588
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Pringle
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. It is apparent to me that the robbery and the conspiracy constituted a single and unitary criminal episode. It is, in my mind, wrong to cause this- unitary or single act to be broken down into a number of separate statutory offenses and then to allow punishment to be imposed on a consecutive sentence basis for each of the statutory violations. Accord, Whitton v. State, 479 P.2d 302 (1970); Neal v. State, 55 Cal.2d 11, 357 P.2d 839, 9 Cal. Rptr. 607 (1960); Johnson, Multiple Punishment and Consecutive Sentences: Reflections on *363the Neal Doctrine, 58 Cal.L.Rev. 357 (1970). See also, Davenport v. United States, 353 F.2d 882 (D.C. Cir. 1965).
Justice Tray nor, in the Neal case, would not permit multiple convictions to be sustained for the single act of throwing gasoline into the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond and then igniting it. Neal had been charged and convicted of arson and two counts of attempted murder, and two consecutive indeterminate sentences were imposed for the attempted murders and a concurrent indeterminate sentence for arson. The maximum term on each count was twenty years, and consecutive sentencing made the total maximum forty years. Based upon Section 654 of the California Penal Code (West Supp. 1969),1 Justice Traynor held that the imposition of sentence for arson was improper. It is my belief that even without a statute consecutive sentences were improper in the instant case on the theory enunciated in the Whitton and Neal cases.
The American Bar Association Standards of Criminal Justice Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures, §3.4, strictly limit the imposition of consecutive sentences. Accordingly, I would not have upheld the imposition of the consecutive sentence for conspiracy when the single act giving rise to the two crimes was the robbery upon which sentence was imposed.
Mr. Justice Day and Mr. Justice Groves have authorized me to announce that they join in my dissent.

‘Alternative or Substitute and Cumulative Punishments. 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. . . .” Section 654 prevents harassment of a defendant by multiple prosecution as well as multiple punishment. Multiple prosecution is forbidden in some circumstances when multiple punishment in a single prosecution would be permitted. See Kellett v. Superior Court, 63 Cal. 2d 822, 409 P.2d 206, 48 Cal. Rptr. 366 (1966). See also Ashe v. Swenson, 38 U.S.L.W. 4295, 4298 (U.S. April 6, 1970).