746
Opinion of Souter, J.
the case of state law. "Where . . . a legislature specifically authorizes cumulative punishments under two statutes, regardless of whether those two statutes proscribe the 'same' conduct under Blockburger, a court's task of statutory construction is at an end and the prosecutor may seek and the trial court or jury may impose cumulative punishment under such statutes in a single trial." Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U. S. 359, 368-369 (1983); see Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U. S. 493, 499, n. 8 (1984).2
With respect to punishment for a single act, the Block-burger test thus asks in effect whether the legislature meant it to be punishable as more than one crime. To give the government broad control over the number of punishments that may be meted out for a single act, however, is consistent with the general rule that the government may punish as it chooses, within the bounds contained in the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. With respect to punishment, those provisions provide the primary protection against excess. "Because the substantive power to prescribe crimes and determine punishments is vested with the legislature, the question under the Double Jeopardy Clause whether punishments are 'multiple' is essentially one of legislative intent." Johnson, supra, at 499 (citations and footnote omitted).
III
The interests at stake in avoiding successive prosecutions are different from those at stake in the prohibition against multiple punishments, and our cases reflect this reality. The protection against successive prosecutions is the central protection provided by the Clause. A 19th-century case of this Court observed that "[t]he prohibition is not against being
2 For purposes of this case I need express no view on this question, whether the proscription of punishment for state-law offenses that fail the Blockburger test can somehow be overcome by a clearly shown legislative intent that they be punished separately. See Albernaz v. United States, 450 U. S. 333, 344-345 (1981) (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment).
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