Supreme Court of California

In an appeal arising after defendant was convicted by a jury for both petty theft and receiving the property he had stolen, court of appeals' reversal of the petty theft conviction on the ground that the "greater" felony offense of receiving stolen property took precedence over the "lesser" misdemeanor theft offense is reversed as the rule against dual convictions (which was in effect long before its codification in 1992) is based on the premise that a theft conviction operates as a bar to a receiving conviction, and the Legislature gave no indication it meant to change this established practice.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/17/2010
• Published 05/17/2010

Judges

• CORRIGAN, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Richard De La Sota, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant., Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Lynne McGinnis, Teresa Torreblanca, Barry Carlton and Donald W. Ostertag, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.