California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Haddad, B286159 (Cal. App. 2018):
"The law prefers trying charged offenses together because doing so ordinarily promotes efficiency. [Citation.] Penal Code section 954 embodies this preference. That section provides as relevant: 'An accusatory pleading may charge two or more different offenses connected together in their commission, . . . or two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts . . . .' [Citation.] 'Offenses "committed at different times and places against different victims are nevertheless 'connected together in their commission' when they are . . . linked by a ' "common element of substantial importance." ' " ' [Citation.]" (People v. Anderson (2018) 5 Cal.5th 372, 388.)
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