Cite as: 522 U. S. 93 (1997)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
important because the States and the Federal Government have an enormous array of civil administrative sanctions at their disposal that are capable of being used to punish persons repeatedly for the same offense, violating the bedrock double jeopardy principle of finality. "The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity . . . ." Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187 (1957). However the Court chooses to recalibrate the meaning of punishment for double jeopardy purposes, our doctrine still limits multiple sanctions of the rare sort contemplated by Halper.
IV
Today, as it did in Halper itself, the Court relies on the sort of multifactor approach to the definition of punishment that we used in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 168-169 (1963), to identify situations in which a civil sanction is punitive. Whether the Court's reformulation of Halper's test will actually affect the outcome of any cases remains to be seen. Perhaps it will not, since the Court recommends consideration of whether a sanction's " 'operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment—retribution and deterrence,' " and " 'whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative [nonpunitive] purpose assigned.' " Ante, at 99-100 (quoting Kennedy, 372 U. S., at 168-169). Those factors look awfully similar to the reasoning in Halper, and while we are told that they are never by themselves dispositive, ante, at 101, they should be capable of tipping the balance in extreme cases. The danger in changing approaches midstream, rather than refining our established approach on an incremental basis, is that the Government and lower
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