DEGUZMAN

After a court trial, the trial court found defendant A1 Joseph DeGuzman guilty of 54 counts of possessing “any explosive” in a public location (Pen. Code, § 12303.2) and 54 counts of possessing “any explosive” with intent to injure (§ 12303.3). At sentencing, however, the trial court dismissed all but one conviction for each offense in reliance on what it felt was binding precedent. On the remaining convictions, it sentenced defendant to a seven-year upper term for the intent-to-injure offense and a six-year upper term for the public-location offense that it stayed pursuant to section 654. The rationale for the dismissals was an interpretation of and the specific holding in People v. Kirk (1989) 211 Cal.App.3d 58 [ 259 Cal.Rptr. 44 ] (Kirk), which generally held that a weapons-possession statute prohibiting possession of “any” prohibited weapon was ambiguous as to whether the defendant was subject to multiple convictions for possessing more than one unlawful item of the same kind at the same time and place. Applying the statutory interpretation rule of lenity, Kirk concluded that the defendant in question was entitled to have the ambiguity resolved in his favor.

The…