Cite as: 532 U. S. 162 (2001)
Breyer, J., dissenting
burger may have, to import it into this Sixth Amendment context will work havoc.
In theory, the test says that two offenses are the "same offense" unless each requires proof of a fact that the other does not. See ante, at 173 (majority opinion). That means that most of the different crimes mentioned above are not the "same offense." Under many States' laws, for example, the statute defining assault and the statute defining robbery each requires proof of a fact that the other does not. Compare, e. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 211 (West 1999) (robbery) (requiring taking of personal property of another) with § 240 (assault) (requiring attempt to commit violent injury). Hence the extension of the definition of "offense" that is accomplished by the use of the Blockburger test does nothing to address the substantial concerns about the circumvention of the Sixth Amendment right that are raised by the majority's rule.
But, more to the point, the simple-sounding Blockburger test has proved extraordinarily difficult to administer in practice. Judges, lawyers, and law professors often disagree about how to apply it. See, e. g., United States v. Woodward, 469 U. S. 105, 108 (1985) (per curiam) (holding that lower court misapplied Blockburger test). Compare United States v. Dixon, 509 U. S. 688, 697-700 (1993) (opinion of Scalia, J.) (applying Blockburger and concluding that contempt is same offense as underlying substantive crime), with 509 U. S., at 716-720 (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (applying Blockburger and deciding that the two are separate offenses). The test has emerged as a tool in an area of our jurisprudence that The Chief Justice has described as "a veritable Sargasso Sea which could not fail to challenge the most intrepid judicial navigator." Albernaz v. United States, 450 U. S. 333, 343 (1981). Yet the Court now asks, not the lawyers and judges who ordinarily work with double jeopardy law, but police officers in the field, to navigate Blockburger when they ques-
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