Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/910

 69.6. FEDERAL REPORTER. �one indictmenf;, and two joined in the otlier. Suppose they retum but the three, would it make any difference to the defendant, ia the trial of these three, which of these fîve should have been included in it? He would have had no voice in it whatever. It is wholly ex parte. And a defendant has no voice in what a grand jury shall do in the presentment of an indictment against him. They hear testimony for the government only, and they present whatever the proof satis- fies them he has been guilty of. Instead of returning one indictment for three offences in three counts, and another indictment of two counts, they have returned one indictment of five counts. And it is to the benefit of the defendant that they have done so, because this statute disposes of two of the offences which it is charged he has been guilty of. It disposes of any necessity on his part to prepare to meet sueh addi- tional offences, and says that as to three of them you shall be called upon to answer ; but as to the two you shall not. �The defendant objects because the grand jury might have charged in the indictment the two offences omitted from it, and excluded the two of the three which romain. But he has not shown that he is prejudiced by any proceeding of that character, even if it had been so; and he has no choice to say what offences shall or shall not be charged in an indict- ment. It is for the grand jury to say that, and it is for him to say to the court that you shall not permit me to be preju- diced in anywise in my defence by having a great multitude of offences charged against me, which may vex me in my defence, and confuse the court and jury. And we do not see that the fact that the district attorney has been permitted to enter a nolle as to two of the counts, leaving three, would in the least degree tend to vex or confuse him, or deprive him of any rights which he possessed in any form whatever. �If it be objected to as a mere matter of form, the statute of the United States (section 1025, Kev. St.) has provided that "no indictment found andpresented by a grand jury, in any dis- trict or circuit or other court of the United States, shall be deeemed insufficient; nor shall the trial, judgment, or other proceeding thereon be affected by reason of any defect or ����