## Facts

- Nathaniel Brown took a 1965 Chevrolet from a parking lot in East Cleveland, Ohio on November 29, 1973.
- On December 8, 1973, police caught Brown driving the same car in Wickliffe, Ohio.
- Wickliffe charged Brown with “joyriding” (taking or operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent).
- Brown pleaded guilty to joyriding and was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $100 fine, which he served.
- Afterward, East Cleveland authorities charged Brown in a court of common pleas with felony auto theft based on the same car and episode.
- Under Ohio law, auto theft required proof of the same elements as joyriding plus intent permanently to deprive the owner of the vehicle.
- Brown objected that the second prosecution violated the Double Jeopardy Clause, but he was convicted.
- The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning that the two prosecutions targeted different portions of the nine-day period between taking and apprehension; the Ohio Supreme Court declined review.

## Issues

1. Whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a subsequent prosecution for auto theft after a conviction and punishment for joyriding when joyriding is a lesser included offense of auto theft arising from the same conduct.
2. Whether a state may avoid double jeopardy by charging the lesser offense and greater offense using different dates within a continuous course of conduct involving the same vehicle.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed.
- The Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars successive prosecution and punishment for a greater offense after conviction of a lesser included offense based on the same act or transaction.
- Applying the “same elements” test, the Court concluded joyriding is a lesser included offense of auto theft under Ohio law.
- The Court rejected Ohio’s attempt to justify separate prosecutions by assigning different dates within the same nine-day episode.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Blockburger “same elements” test, two offenses are not distinct for double jeopardy purposes if one does not require proof of any fact beyond those required by the other.
- The Double Jeopardy Clause generally prohibits successive prosecutions and cumulative punishment for a greater offense and its lesser included offense when they arise from the same conduct.
- When state law defines the greater offense as the lesser offense plus an additional element (here, intent permanently to deprive), the lesser is included in the greater for double jeopardy analysis.
- Specifying different dates for charges within a single continuous course of conduct does not convert one offense into two for purposes of successive prosecution.

## Conclusion

Because joyriding was a lesser included offense of auto theft under Ohio law and both prosecutions arose from the same episode involving the same vehicle, Ohio’s later auto-theft prosecution placed Brown twice in jeopardy for the same offense in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.


Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161 (1977)