In Braverman v. United States, the defendants were convicted of conspiracy to violate several provisions of the Internal Revenue Code related to distilling and selling spirits without paying taxes. The indictment contained multiple counts, each alleging a conspiracy to commit one specific offense. However, all these offenses were part of a single agreement between the conspirators. On appeal, they argued that this constituted double jeopardy as they were punished multiple times for essentially the same crime - participating in one overarching criminal agreement. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld their convictions in 1942. It ruled that when several crimes are committed as part of a single conspiracy or criminal agreement, it is still only one offense under federal law against conspiracies (18 U.S.C §371). Therefore charging them separately for each crime did not constitute double jeopardy because there was only ever one punishment imposed: for participating in an unlawful conspiracy.

In the dissenting opinion for Braverman v. United States, Justice Frank Murphy argued that the defendants were improperly charged with multiple counts of conspiracy based on a single agreement to commit several crimes. He believed this was in violation of both common law principles and the specific language of the federal conspiracy statute, which he interpreted as allowing only one charge per agreement. According to Justice Murphy, charging multiple conspiracies based on one agreement could lead to excessive punishment and violate protections against double jeopardy. He also expressed concern about potential prosecutorial abuse if such practices were allowed to continue unchecked.