McElroy v. United States (164 U.S. 76)

G., B., H., C., S. and J. were indicted April 16 for assault with intent to kill EM.; also, on the same day, for assault with intent to kill SM.; also, May 1, for arson of the dwelling house of EM.; and, on the same 16th of April, G., B. and H. were indicted for arson of the dwelling house of BM. The court ordered the four indictments consolidated. All the defendants except J. were then tried together, and the trials resulted in separate verdicts of conviction, and the prisoners so convicted were severally sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Held, that the several charges in the four indictments were for offences separate and distinct, complete in themselves, independent of each other, and not provable by the same evidence; and that their consolidation was not authorized by Rev. Stat. § 1024.

Such a joinder cannot be sustained where the parties are not the same, and where the offences are in nowise parts of the same trandaction, and depend upon evidence of a different state of facts as to each or some of them.