Opinion ID: 2576140
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lessary, Blockburger, and Dixon

Text: In Lessary, we explained that we will only extend the double jeopardy protections of the Hawai`i Constitution if we find that the protections afforded by the United States Constitution are inadequate. Lessary, 75 Haw. at 454, 865 P.2d at 154. Our analysis must thus begin with the protections provided under the United States Constitution in the multiple punishments scenario. In Blockburger, a multiple punishments case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the double jeopardy clause protects defendants from receiving multiple punishments for the same offense, even in a single prosecution, and created the same elements test to implement that protection. As stated earlier herein, the Blockburger test held that where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each requires proof of a fact which the other does not. Lessary, 75 Haw. at 452, 865 P.2d at 153 (quoting Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. 180). Put simply, in a multiple punishments case, if each offense has an element that the other does not, then there is no double jeopardy clause violation. [16] In United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (1993), the Supreme Court vigorously debated the issue of whether to apply the same elements or same conduct tests to successive prosecution cases before overruling Grady and holding that the same elements test applies; it appears settled at the federal level that the same elements test applies in multiple punishments cases as well as in successive prosecution cases.