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5 By prohibiting multiple punishments for a single criminal act Penal Code section 654. affords protection beyond and different from that given by either the constitutional proscrip-. tion of subsequent jeopardy or the implementation of that doctrine by Penal Code section 1023..
Criminal law classically describes offences as being composed of two elements: the mens rea and the actus reus. The mens rea is the guilty mind and the actus reus is the guilty act. The words come from a Latin maxim that holds there to be no punishable act that is not the result of a guilty mind. It is not a crime merely to think guilty thoughts. Guilty thoughts must be linked to an act.