This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Ds were indicted, with others, on seven counts, each charging a conspiracy to violate a separate and distinct internal revenue law of the United States. There was evidence from which the jury could have found that for a considerable period of time Ds, with others, collaborated in the illicit manufacture, transportation, and distribution of distilled spirits involving the violations of statute mentioned in the several counts of the indictment. At the close of the trial, Ds renewed a motion which they had made at its beginning to require P to elect one of the seven counts of the indictment upon which to proceed, contending that the proof could not and did not establish more than one agreement. P contends that the seven counts of the indictment charged as distinct offenses the several illegal objects of one continuing conspiracy, that if the jury found such a conspiracy, it might find the defendants guilty of as many offenses as it had illegal objects, and that for each such offense the two-year statutory penalty could be imposed. The trial judge agreed with P. The jury returned a general verdict of 'guilty as charged,' and the court sentenced each to eight years' imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. It concluded that the fact that the conspiracy was 'a general one to violate all laws repressive of its consummation does not gainsay the separate identity of each of the seven conspiracies.' The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

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