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Name: People v. Cleveland
Case #: B139266
Opinion Date: 02/27/2001
Division: 7
Citation: 87 Cal.App.4th 263
Summary

Penal Code section 654 does not run afoul of the rule announced in Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. ___ [147 L.Ed.2d 435, 120 S.Ct. 2348]. Apprendi held that any fact which increases the penalty for a crime must be submitted to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, Cleveland argued that the issue of whether he had a separate “intent and objective” for multiple offenses during a course of criminal conduct was such a factual question for the jury to determine, and that therefore his consecutive sentences for attempted murder and robbery had to be vacated because the trial court, not the jury, made the relevant section 654 factual determinations by a lower standard of proof. The appellate court here disagreed. The question of whether section 654 operates to “stay” a particular sentence does not involve the determination of any fact that could increase the penalty for a crime beyond the statutory maximum. Further, even if the question had been sent to the jury, it would have reached the same conclusion. Sufficient evidence existed to conclude that Cleveland harbored divisible intents in the robbery and attempted murder of his victim. J. Johnson dissented, finding that Apprendi required the jury rather than the trial judge to determine whether the defendant committed the offenses with multiple objectives.