United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, where two statutes criminalize the same act and those statutes have different maximum penalties, the maximum penalty of the statute the prosecutor chose to charge under applies.

[1][2] The case stands for the principle that a single act can violate more than one statute, and the prosecutor has discretion over which statute to charge under regardless of the potential consequences for the defendant.

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for the unanimous court.

[1] Two sections of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 criminalized possession of a firearm by a felon.

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