Cite as: 509 U. S. 688 (1993)
Opinion of Souter, J.
sary to prove a failure to slow or to rely on conduct necessarily involving such failure . . . . In that case, because Vitale has already been convicted for conduct that is a necessary element of the more serious crime for which he has been charged, his claim of double jeopardy would be substantial under Brown and our later decision in Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U. S. 682 (1977)." Id., at 420.
Over a decade ago, then, we clearly understood Harris to stand for the proposition that when one has already been tried for a crime comprising certain conduct, a subsequent prosecution seeking to prove the same conduct is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.8 This is in no way inconsistent with Vitale's description of Harris as "treat[ing] a killing in the course of a robbery as itself a separate statutory offense, and the robbery as a species of lesser-included offense." 447 U. S., at 420. The very act of "treating" it that way was a departure from straight Blockburger analysis; it was the same departure taken by the Nielsen Court. Vitale read Harris (which itself quoted Nielsen) to hold that even if the Blockburger test were satisfied, a second prosecution would not be permitted for conduct comprising the criminal act charged in the first. Nielsen and Harris used the word "incident," while Vitale used the word "conduct," but no matter which word is used to describe the unlawful activity for which one cannot again be forced to stand trial, the import of this successive-prosecution strand of our double jeopardy jurisprudence is clear.
Even if this had not been clear since the time of In re Nielsen, any debate should have been settled by our decision three Terms ago in Grady v. Corbin, 495 U. S. 508 (1990),
8 It is true that in light of its decision to remand the case to provide the State further opportunity to put forward some other basis for its prosecution, the Vitale Court, appropriately, described the claim only as "substantial." The important point, however, is the way in which the Court in Vitale (and, for that matter, the dissent in that case, see 447 U. S., at 426 (opinion of Stevens, J.)) read the Harris opinion.
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