Cite as: 509 U. S. 688 (1993)
Opinion of Souter, J.
punishment (within Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment limits), but could bring a person to trial again and again for that same conduct, violating the principle of finality, subjecting him repeatedly to all the burdens of trial, rehearsing its prosecution, and increasing the risk of erroneous conviction, all in contravention of the principles behind the protection from successive prosecutions included in the Fifth Amendment. The protection of the Double Jeopardy Clause against successive prosecutions is not so fragile that it can be avoided by finely drafted statutes and carefully planned prosecutions.
VII
I would not invite any such consequences and would here apply our successive prosecution decisions (from Nielsen to Grady) to conclude that the prosecutions below were barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Dixon was prosecuted for violating a court order to "[r]efrain from committing any criminal offense." App. 8. The contempt prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he had possessed cocaine with intent to distribute it. His prosecution, therefore, for possession with intent to distribute cocaine based on the same incident is barred. It is of course true that the elements of the two offenses can be treated as different. In the contempt conviction, the Government had to prove knowledge of the court order as well as Dixon's commission of some criminal offense. In the subsequent prosecution, the Government would have to prove possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. In any event, because the Government has already prosecuted Dixon for the possession of cocaine at issue here, Dixon cannot be tried for that incident a second time.10
10 I agree, therefore, with Justice White that the element of knowledge of a court order is irrelevant for double jeopardy purposes. See ante, at 734 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).
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