Joseph McKenna

“ To it is confided the power to adapt the punishment to the degree of crime. It may sentence the full penalty upon one offense. It may, though it is not required to, do more upon three offenses, and in a single sentence of one day, or of eighteen months, or three times eighteen months, it may express its views of the criminality of a defendant, and, to use the language of the statute, 'proportion the punishment especially to the degree in which the abuse of the postoffice establishment' enters as an instrument 'in the defendant's fraudulent scheme and device.'
The rule is discharged. ”

“ That is the whole scope and meaning of the provision, and there is nothing whatever in it to indicate an intention to make a single continuous offense, and punishable only as such, out of what, without it, would have been several distinct offenses, each complete in itself.' We need not add much to this language. The contention of the petitioner would make the punishment depend upon the manner of pleading, and, may be, upon the discretion of prosecuting officers, rather than upon the violation of the law. ”

“ It is not correct, therefore, as contended by counsel for petitioner, that the judgment and sentence of the district court were confined to indictment in case No. 3012. The proceedings were entitled as of that case because of the consolidation, but the other cases did not lose thereby their identity and consequences. The judgment and sentence must be construed by the cases which were tried and upon which the jury rendered its verdict. The petitioner was found guilty as charged in the indictment in 3012 on all counts ”