754
Opinion of Souter, J.
element of marriage was disregarded (as the Court had just done, considering instead only adultery's "principal ingredient" of intercourse), the act of intercourse stood to cohabitation as a lesser included offense stands to the greater offense. By treating intercourse as though it were a lesser included offense, Nielsen barred subsequent prosecution for that act under an adultery charge. Indeed, on any other reading we would have to conclude that the Nielsen Court did not know what it was doing, for if it had been holding only that a subsequent prosecution for a lesser included offense was barred, the adultery prosecution would not have been. There can be no question that the Court was adopting the very different rule that subsequent prosecution is barred for any charge comprising an act that has been the subject of prior conviction.6
V
Our modern cases reflect the concerns that resulted in Nielsen's holding. We have already quoted the observation that "[t]he Blockburger test is not the only standard for determining whether successive prosecutions impermissibly involve the same offense. Even if two offenses are sufficiently different to permit the imposition of consecutive sentences, successive prosecutions will be barred in some circumstances where the second prosecution requires the relitigation of factual issues already resolved by the first." Brown v. Ohio, 432 U. S., at 166-167, n. 6. The Brown Court, indeed, relied on Nielsen for this proposition. "[I]n In re Nielsen, 131 U. S. 176 (1889), the Court held that a conviction of a Mormon on a charge of cohabiting with his two wives over a 21/2-year period barred a subsequent prosecution for adultery with one of them on the day following the end of that period . . . . [S]trict application of the Blockburger test would have per-6 Our cases, of course, hold that the same protection inheres after an acquittal. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 717 (1969).
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