In People v. Cook, the Supreme Court today unanimously held that Penal Code section 12022.7, subdivision (g), which provides that the great bodily injury enhancement of that section “shall not apply to murder or manslaughter . . . ,” “means what it says” and that “the sentence for the gross vehicular manslaughter of one victim” thus could not “be enhanced for defendant’s infliction of great bodily injury on other victims.”
The opinion, authored by Justice Ming Chin and the first one signed by new Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Leondra Kruger, reverses the Court of Appeal (Fourth District, Division Two), which had concluded that “[t]he statutory bar in section 12022.7, subdivision (g) would appear to be limited to the imposition of an enhancement with respect to a victim for whom the defendant had already been convicted of manslaughter.” Cook also disapproves of three Court of Appeal opinions, all from the Fourth District, Division One, and approves of an opinion issued by the Second District, Division Five.