Legal Question in Constitutional Law in California
consecutive convictions
I'm doing a report on the constitutionality of consecutive charges/convictions. Is it constitutional for a person to be convicted of 3 separate charges when they all are the cause of a single incident.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: consecutive convictions
It depends upon the circumstances. There is generally no problem with multiple convictions for a single incident, if the defendant actually violated multiple criminal laws at the same time (for example, by speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol) or harmed multiple victims.
Multiple convictions are one thing but multiple sentences are another, and there are circumstances under which consecutive sentences for a single incident would not be proper. (You asked about "consecutive convictions", but I presume this is what you had in mind.) Such circumstances are relatively uncommon, so consecutive sentences usually are allowed - especially where there are multiple victims.
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