You break into a house and steal a diamond ring. But oops - turns out the house is owned by the police chief and you are arrested. The prosecutor wants to bring charges of both breaking and entering (a misdemeanor) and burglary (a felony). Most likely, the prosecutor will not be able to bring both of these charges, because: Misdemeanors have short statutes of limitations, so the limitation period has probably already expired on the misdemeanor This is a pretext stop under Whren v. United States and therefore your arrest is unconstitutional The constitution prohibits prosecutors from "stacking" charges when a series of actions can result in many different possible charges The crimes merge into one under the merger doctrine, and the lesser offense is absorbed into the greater offense

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