distinct offenses
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 273 U.S. 1 - Albrecht v. United States · 1927Most cited · 906 citing opinions
possessing and selling are distinct offenses. One may obviously possess without selling, and one may sell and cause to be delivered a thing of which he has never had possession, or one may have possession and later sell. The fact that the person sells the liquor which he possessed does not render the possession and the sale necessarily a single offense. There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents Congress from punishing separately each step leading to the consummation of a transaction which it has power to prohibit and punishing also the completed transaction.
How often courts cite the case defining “distinct offenses”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “distinct offenses” — 906 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.