In the case of Brown v. Ohio in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a defendant cannot be tried twice for the same crime based on different aspects of it, as this violates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The appellant, Leroy Brown was charged and convicted in an Ohio state court for joyriding (a misdemeanor) after he had been found driving a stolen car. Later, he was indicted again by grand jury for auto theft (a felony), which involved stealing that same vehicle prior to his arrest while joyriding. He appealed against this second charge arguing it constituted double jeopardy since both charges were essentially about him unlawfully taking and using one car at one time period - thus they should be considered as 'the same offence'. The Court agreed with Brown's argument stating that each charge required proof of a fact which other did not wasn't enough reason to consider them separate offences under Blockburger test; rather they must look if each provision clearly intended by legislature as separate offense.

In the dissenting opinion for Brown v. Ohio, Justice William Rehnquist argued that the majority's interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause was too broad and inconsistent with historical precedent. He contended that it is not always clear when one offense ends and another begins, making it difficult to determine whether two charges constitute a single offense or separate offenses. Furthermore, he believed that applying this clause to lesser-included offenses could lead to absurd results where defendants are only prosecuted for minor crimes while more serious ones go unpunished. Therefore, he disagreed with the majority's decision to overturn Brown’s convictions on double jeopardy grounds.