Rodriguez

A jury convicted defendant of three counts of assault with a firearm. (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(2).) As to each count, the jury found to be true two sentence enhancement allegations: that defendant personally used a firearm (§ 12022.5, subd. (a)), and that the assault was a “violent felony” committed to benefit a criminal street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)(C)). The trial court sentenced defendant to prison for a total of 22 years and eight months. That sentence included 18 years and eight months for the two sentence enhancements.

The Court of Appeal, in a two-to-one decision, struck the additional five years and four months resulting from defendant’s personal firearm use, but it left in place the additional 13 years and four months imposed for committing violent felonies to benefit a street gang. The majority reasoned that application of both sentence enhancement provisions in this case violated section 654’s prohibition against multiple punishment for a single criminal act — here, that single act was defendant’s firearm use in each of the three assaults.

We agree with the Court of Appeal majority that the trial court erred in imposing additional punishment for…