Cite as: 509 U. S. 688 (1993)
Opinion of Souter, J.
with a firearm and robbery in a dwelling, is either identical to or a lesser included offense of the other. But since the purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause's protection against successive prosecutions is to prevent repeated trials in which a defendant will be forced to defend against the same charge again and again, and in which the government may perfect its presentation with dress rehearsal after dress rehearsal, it should be irrelevant that the second prosecution would require the defendant to defend himself not only from the charge that he committed the robbery, but also from the charge of some additional fact, in this case, that the scene of the crime was a dwelling.4 If, instead, protection against successive prosecutions were as limited as it would be by Blockburger alone, the doctrine would be as striking for its anomalies as for the limited protection it would provide. Thus, in the relatively few successive prosecution cases we have had over the years, we have not held that the Block-burger test is the only hurdle the government must clear (with one exception, see infra, at 758-759).
IV
The recognition that a Blockburger rule is insufficient protection against successive prosecution can be seen as long ago as In re Nielsen, 131 U. S. 176 (1889), where we held that conviction for one statutory offense precluded later prosecution for another, even though each required proof of a fact the other did not. There, appellant Nielsen had been convicted after indictment and a guilty plea in what was then the Territory of Utah for "cohabit[ing] with more than one woman," based upon his cohabitation with Anna Lavinia
4 The irrelevance of additional elements can be seen in the fact that, as every Member of the Court agrees, the Double Jeopardy Clause does provide protection not merely against prosecution a second time for literally the same offense, but also against prosecution for greater offenses in which the first crime was lesser included, offenses that by definition require proof of one or more additional elements.
749
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