David Josiah Brewer

“ But manifestly the description in the indictment does not need to be any more definite and precise than the proof of the crime. In other words, if certain facts make out the crime, it is sufficient to charge those facts, and it is obviously unnecessary to state that which is not essential. Can it be doubted that if these defendants entered into a conspiracy to defraud the United States of public lands, subject to homestead entry, at the given office in the named county, the crime of conspiracy was complete, even if no particular tract or tracts were selected by the conspirators? ”

“ It is familiar law that separate counts are united in one indictment, either because entirely separate and distinct offenses are intended to be charge, or because the pleader, having in mind but a single offense, varies the statement in the several counts as to the manner or means of its commission in order to avoid at the trial an acquittal by reason of any unforeseen lack of harmony between the allegations and the proofs. ”

“ It is one purpose of an indictment to inform the defendant of the crime of which he is charged, and there can be no doubt that this defendant understood the exact sense in which the word 'entry' was used in this indictment, and was not misled into the belief that the only crime charged against him was of a conspiracy to acquire lands of the United States by means of wrongful preliminary proof. ”