The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Jeffrey Allen Whitmer, Defendant and Appellant — Rushing, J., Dissenting

Summary

The dissent would affirm the defendant's 20 grand-theft convictions, rejecting the majority's equation of Bailey's single-criminal-impulse rule with the statutory phrase "common scheme or plan." It reasons that repeated opportunistic takings using a common method remain separate offenses absent proof that they were undertaken pursuant to one originating intention, impulse, and plan, and that the same unit-of-prosecution rule must apply regardless of the value of the property taken. Justice Liu, concurring, agrees with the result but would clarify that the Bailey rule applies to grand and petty theft alike; Justice Werdegar, concurring, agrees that separate and distinct grand thefts may be separately convicted but would find due process bars applying the clarified standard to this defendant.