Barrett v. United States · ¶75

What happens, though, where (as here) the government brings two charges for the same offense concurrently in the same proceeding rather than successively in two separate ones? That question does not appear to have arisen much in our Nation's early years. Maybe it didn't in part because criminal codes were considerably thinner then, affording prosecutors fewer opportunities to bring overlapping charges. Maybe it didn't in part, too, because of the traditional maxim that “an indictment should not include more than one felony,” which left multiple-count indictments vulnerable to being quashed by trial judges. Pointer v. United States, 151 U. S. 396, 403 (1894). But if the question didn't arise much in the past, it is of obvious relevance in our times. These days, federal and state criminal codes have exploded, with scores of repetitive offenses on the books. Frequently, also, today's…

preliminary print (page proof)
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.