American criminal justice places a high value on judicial economy. As a result, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permit prosecutors to join offenses and defendants in a single indictment or (where applicable) information, see Chapter 6.C. A case may thus proceed to trial with several defendants and may include several different charged offenses.

An indictment or information will typically list one or more counts, which are the specific charges against the defendants; each count must allege a specific, separate violation of one specific criminal law. Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that an “indictment or information may charge a defendant in separate counts with two or more offenses if the offenses charged—whether felonies or misdemeanors or both—are of the same or similar character, or are based on the same act or transaction, or are connected with or constitute parts of a common scheme or plan.” The indictment or information may also “charge two or more defendants if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction, or in the same series of acts or transactions, constituting an offense or offenses. The defendants may be charged in one or more counts together or separately. All defendants need not be charged in each count.”