In the case of Edwards v. United States in 1997, petitioners James and Jennifer Edwards were convicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana under federal law. They argued that their sentences should be reduced because they had not been found guilty by a jury of conspiring to distribute both drugs, but rather each drug separately. The Supreme Court disagreed with this argument. It held that when a jury verdict does not specify which objects of a conspiracy the defendants agreed upon (in this case, whether it was cocaine or marijuana), as long as there is sufficient evidence to support conviction on either ground, then the convictions must stand even if some jurors may have disagreed about which object was involved in the conspiracy. Therefore, since there was enough evidence supporting conviction for conspiring to distribute either drug independently, their combined sentence remained unchanged.

In the dissenting opinion for Edwards v. United States, 1997, it was argued that the majority's interpretation of federal law was incorrect and overly broad. The dissenters believed that by allowing a jury to convict based on either drug type or quantity without requiring unanimity on which element formed the basis of their decision, violated a defendant’s constitutional rights. They contended this could lead to situations where some jurors convicted based on one factor while others relied upon another - effectively meaning they had not reached unanimous agreement as required by law. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority's view that sentencing enhancements should be applied even when those factors were not part of the original indictment or found beyond reasonable doubt by a jury – arguing this undermined fundamental principles of justice and fairness in criminal proceedings.