744
Opinion of Souter, J.
tion was meant to provide. The Court has read our precedents so narrowly as to leave them bereft of the principles animating that protection, and has chosen to overrule the most recent of the relevant cases, Grady v. Corbin, 495 U. S. 508 (1990), decided three years ago. Because I think that Grady was correctly decided, amounting merely to an expression of just those animating principles, and because, even if the decision had been wrong in the first instance, there is no warrant for overruling it now, I respectfully dissent. I join Part I of Justice White's opinion, and I would hold, as he would, both the prosecution of Dixon and the prosecution of Foster under all the counts of the indictment against him to be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.1
I
In providing that no person shall "be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb," U. S. Const., Amdt. 5, the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against two distinct types of abuses. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 717 (1969). It protects against being punished more than once for a single offense, or "multiple punishment." Where a person is being subjected to more than one sentence, the Double Jeopardy Clause ensures that he is not receiving for one offense more than the punishment authorized. The Clause also protects against being prosecuted for the same offense more than once, or "successive prosecution." "It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction." Ibid. (footnotes omitted). The Clause functions in different ways in the two contexts, and the analysis applied to claims of successive prosecution differs from that employed to analyze claims of multiple punishment.
1 Consequently, I concur in the Court's judgment with respect to Dixon's prosecution and the prosecution of Foster under Count I of the indictment against him.
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