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No. 99-5716: Carter v. United States | |||||||||||
No. 99-5716
In the Supreme Court of the United States
FLOYD J. CARTER, PETITIONER
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES
SETH P. WAXMAN
Solicitor General
Counsel of Record
JAMES K. ROBINSON
Assistant Attorney General
MICHAEL R. DREEBEN
Deputy Solicitor General
DAVID C. FREDERICK
Assistant to the Solicitor
General
THOMAS E. BOOTH
Attorney
Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
(202) 514-2217
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether bank larceny, 18 U.S.C. 2113(b) (Supp. IV 1998), is a lesser included
offense of bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. 2113(a).
In the Supreme Court of the United States
No. 99-5716
FLOYD J. CARTER, PETITIONER
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES
OPINION BELOW
The opinion of the court of appeals (J.A. 80-87) is unpublished, but the
judgment is noted at 185 F.3d 863 (Table).
JURISDICTION
The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on June 16, 1999. The petition
for a writ of certiorari was filed on August 12, 1999, and granted on December
13, 1999. The jurisdiction of this Court rests on 28 U.S.C. 1254(1).
STATEMENT
Following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the District
of New Jersey, petitioner was convicted on one count of bank robbery, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(a). He was sentenced to 215 months' imprisonment
to be followed by three years' supervised release. The court of appeals
affirmed. J.A. 80-87.1
1. On September 9, 1997, at approximately 2:00 p.m., petitioner entered
the Collective Federal Savings Bank in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, through
the door adjacent to the parking lot. Despite the warm weather, he was wearing
several layers of clothing and a ski mask that covered almost his entire
face. Encountering a customer who was leaving the bank, he pushed her twice,
and ordered her to "move over." C.A. App. 31. She "attempted
to exit around [petitioner], but [he] pushed her back inside." J.A.
81. The customer "was so terrified that she screamed, startling others
within the bank." J.A. 82; see also C.A. App. 29-32.
Petitioner then ran toward the customer service counter and vaulted over
the counter and through one of the teller windows to the area behind the
counter. One of the tellers ran to the branch manager's office, "yelling
that a robber was after her." J.A. 82. Petitioner seized money from
a teller drawer and stuffed it into a brown paper bag. He then moved to
within two feet of where two tellers stood and emptied their teller drawers.
Ibid. According to one of the tellers, he said he "wouldn't hurt nobody."
C.A. App. 79. Nevertheless, two of the tellers testified that they were
"scared to death," and one was crying and trembling. Gov't C.A.
Br. 3. The customer whom petitioner had pushed inside the bank upon his
arrival meanwhile had run out of the bank, "got into her car, laid
down on the floor and prayed until the authorities arrived." J.A. 82.
After removing almost $16,000 in currency, petitioner hurdled back over
the teller counter and warned the bank's occupants not to follow him. Police
arrested him shortly thereafter. During a subsequent interview, petitioner
confessed that he had taken money from the bank. Ibid.
Petitioner's defense was that he committed only bank larceny, not bank robbery.
He sought to show through his own testimony and cross-examination of the
government's witnesses that he did not use intimidation to obtain the bank's
money. He challenged the customer's testimony that she had screamed upon
encountering petitioner and that he twice had pushed her. C.A. App. 157-158.
According to his account, he wore the ski mask to conceal his identity and
was under the mistaken belief that no customers were in the bank when he
entered it. Id. at 155-156. He said that he specifically avoided confronting
the tellers and first approached a vacant teller station because he did
not want to scare the tellers. Id. at 159-160. He reassured the tellers
that he was "not gonna hurt anybody" and just wanted the money.
Id. at 161. Finally, after stealing the money, he told the occupants not
to follow him because "I run fast." Id. at 164.
After the close of the government's case, petitioner moved for a judgment
of acquittal pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
J.A. 17-20. That motion followed a written submission by defendant requesting
that the jury be instructed on a charge of bank larceny as a lesser included
offense of bank robbery. J.A. 4-9. The gravamen of both motions was the
defense's theory that the government had not proved that petitioner had
obtained the bank's money through "force, violence or intimidation,"
as required by 18 U.S.C. 2113(a). J.A. 24. The court denied the motion,
finding sufficient evidence to establish the elements of bank robbery. J.A.
at 23-32. The court also discussed the Third Circuit's decision in United
States v. Mosley, 126 F.3d 200 (1997), cert. granted, 523 U.S. 1019, cert.
dismissed, 525 U.S. 120 (1998), which held, as a matter of law, that bank
larceny is not a lesser-included offense of bank robbery. J.A. 29-32. Relying
on Mosley, the court denied petitioner's request for a jury instruction
on bank larceny, concluding that the government had introduced sufficient
evidence that "the behavior of [petitioner] was such as could put a
reasonable person in fear of bodily harm and that that could amount to force
or intimidation such as to satisfy the third element of the bank robbery
offense." J.A. 32.
The district court accordingly charged the jury that the elements of the
offense of bank robbery are (1) that the defendant knowingly and willfully
took money from or in the presence of employees of the bank; (2) that the
money was in the "care, custody, control, management or possession"
of the bank; (3) that the defendant took the money by means of "force,
violence or intimidation"; and (4) that the money was insured by the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. J.A. 55. The court also instructed
the jury that "[t]he defense theory of the case" was that "no
conduct of the defendant was reaonably calculated to instill fear of bodily
harm." J.A. 57.
2. The court of appeals affirmed. Following Mosley, the court held that
petitioner was not entitled to a bank larceny instruction because bank larceny
is not a lesser-included offense of bank robbery. It emphasized that its
holding in Mosley was a legal one, resting "solely on the legal interpretation
of Sections 2113(a) and (b)." J.A. 84. It declined to reconsider its
decision in Mosley, finding that specific intent, while an essential element
of a violation of Section 2113(b), is not a requisite element of bank robbery.
The court also rejected petitioner's claim that the evidence did not sufficiently
establish that petitioner used force, violence, or intimidation to steal
the money, which had been the basis of petitioner's motion for acquittal
under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29. J.A. 86-87.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
I. Bank larceny is not a lesser included offense of bank robbery.
A. Under Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705 (1989), the resolution of
the lesser included offense issue turns on whether all of the statutory
elements of the putative lesser offense are necessarily established by proving
the charged offense. Bank larceny contains elements not found in bank robbery.
Section 2113(b) bank larceny requires the government to prove that the defendant
(1) had the specific "intent to steal or purloin" the bank's property;
(2) "carrie[d] away" that property; and (3) took property that
had a monetary value. 18 U.S.C. 2113(b) (Supp. IV 1998). Section 2113(a)
bank robbery contains none of those requirements. 18 U.S.C. 2113(a).
The omission of a specific intent requirement in the first paragraph of
Section 2113(a) is significant. Congress provided specific intent elements
in other subsections of Section 2113. For example, the bank burglary offense
set forth in the second paragraph of Section 2113(a) requires an "intent
to commit in such bank * * * any felony affecting such bank." The presumption
is that the omission of a counterpart specific intent element for bank robbery
was deliberate. See Bates v. United States, 522 U.S. 23, 29-30 (1997). That
conclusion is further supported by the absence of a specific intent to steal
requirement in other robbery offenses defined in the criminal code, such
as 18 U.S.C. 1951 (Hobbs Act), 18 U.S.C. 2111 (robbery in the special maritime
and territorial jurisdiction of the United States), 18 U.S.C. 2118(a) (robbery
of controlled substances), and 18 U.S.C. 2119 (Supp. IV 1998) (carjacking).
Although Section 2113(a) bank robbery does not contain an express mental
element, it is appropriate to infer a general intent requirement. The courts
of appeals have consistently held that the defendant must act "knowingly"
with respect to each actus reus in Section 2113(a). The conclusion that
the knowing use of "force and violence, or by intimidation" is
a sufficient mental element accords with the purposes behind Congress's
enactment of the bank robbery offense. Because of the threat posed to innocent
persons in financial institutions, bank robbery causes as much social harm
and is just as serious even if the perpetrator lacks a specific intent to
deprive the bank permanently of its property.
For similar reasons, the omission of an asportation element and a monetary
valuation requirement in Section 2113(a) bank robbery further supports the
conclusion that Congress did not intend bank larceny in Section 2113(b)
to be a lesser included offense of bank robbery.
B. The legislative history does not support petitioner's submission. Although
simple larceny was a lesser included offense of robbery at common law, an
examination of the language and background of Section 2113 refutes the contention
that Congress intended merely to codify the common law robbery and larceny
offenses. Congress did not initially enact a bank larceny offense when it
proscribed bank robbery in 1934. When it later added a crime for bank larceny,
it did so to fill a gap in the statute-the failure to reach the theft of
bank property without the use of force, violence, or intimidation. Congress
did not indicate in 1937 that it intended bank larceny to be a lesser included
offense of the bank robbery crime established in 1934. And as this Court
has already recognized, the language of Section 2113 creates a larceny offense
that is broader than the common law. See Bell v. United States, 462 U.S.
356, 360-361 (1983). The same is true of the robbery offense defined in
Section 2113.
C. Nor do this Court's cases and canons of statutory construction support
petitioner's contention. In Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322 (1957),
this Court held that convictions under paragraphs one and two of Section
2113(a) merge if the defendant actually completed the crime of bank robbery.
That holding did not entail an analysis of the statutory elements of the
offenses contained in Sections 2113(a) and (b), as is now required by Schmuck,
supra. The holding in Prince may bar certain cumulative punishments under
Section 2113 (a result achieved today by the Sentencing Guidelines), but
it does not compel the giving of a lesser included offense instruction when
the government charges only bank robbery (and not bank larceny) in the indictment.
Similarly, petitioner's reliance on Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S.
246 (1952), is misplaced. Morissette construed the theft offenses in 18
U.S.C. 641 to incorporate common law requirements. That conclusion does
not carry over to Section 2113, which departs from the common law. Nor is
petitioner assisted by Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999). That case
construed federal fraud statutes to incorporate the common law requirement
of materiality. In contrast to Congress's undefined references to a "scheme
to defraud" in those statutes, the bank robbery statute specifies its
elements and now omits from its text an intent-to-steal element that was
previously present (in the form of the word "feloniously"). It
is one thing to hold that a simple reference to a common law crime carries
with it the common law's elements; it is quite another to hold that Congress
cannot escape the common law even when it enumerates the elements of a crime
and deliberately omits some aspects of that crime's common law antecedents.
II. Even if, contrary to our submission, this Court were to hold that the
statutory elements of Section 2113(b) create a lesser included offense of
Section 2113(a) bank robbery, the district court correctly declined to give
a lesser included offense instruction in this case. Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 31(c) requires such an instruction only if the evidence would
permit a rational jury to convict the defendant of the lesser offense while
acquitting him of the greater one. The district court here properly concluded
that the evidence admitted of only one conclusion: that petitioner obtained
the bank's money by the use of intimidation. There is no evidence that petitioner
obtained the funds as a result of the tellers' voluntary actions. Because
no rational juror could reach the conclusion advanced by petitioner, a bank
larceny instruction was not required.
ARGUMENT
I. BANK LARCENY IS NOT A LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSE OF BANK ROBBERY
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(c) provides that a "defendant
may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged."
In Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705 (1989), the Court held that, for
purposes of instructing the jury, the test for determining whether one offense
is a "necessarily included" offense of another under Rule 31(c)
is the statutory "elements" test. Under that test:
[O]ne offense is not "necessarily included" in another unless
the elements of the lesser offense are a subset of the elements of the charged
offense. Where the lesser offense requires an element not required for the
greater offense, no instruction is to be given under Rule 31(c).
489 U.S. at 716. See Hopkins v. Reeves, 524 U.S. 88, 96 & n.6 (1998).2
A. Bank Larceny Contains Statutory Elements That Bank Robbery Does Not Have
"[T]he language of the statutes that Congress enacts provides 'the
most reliable evidence of its intent.'" Holloway v. United States,
526 U.S. 1, 6 (1999) (quoting United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 593
(1981)). Because Congress is solely responsible for defining federal crimes,
see Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 604-605 (1994), this Court will
"ordinarily resist reading words or elements into a statute that do
not appear on its face," Bates v. United States, 522 U.S. 23, 29 (1997)
(specific intent to defraud is not an element of the offense of misapplication
of funds, 20 U.S.C. 1097(a)); see United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482,
490-493 (1997) (materiality is not an element of the offense of making a
false statement to a federal bank, 18 U.S.C. 1014). That principle is especially
apt here because bank robbery and bank larceny are defined in a single provision,
thus highlighting the significance of Congress's choice of contrasting terminology.
"[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a
statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally
presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate
inclusion or exclusion." Bates, 522 U.S. at 29-30 (quoting Russello
v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983)).
Section 2113 of Title 18 punishes crimes against banks in five subsections,
the first two of which are bank robbery (18 U.S.C. 2113(a)) and bank larceny
(18 U.S.C. 2113(b) (Supp. IV 1998)).3 Bank larceny is not a lesser included
offense of bank robbery because Section 2113(b) contains elements not present
in Section 2113(a). Nothing in either subsection expresses an intent by
Congress to create greater and lesser included offenses between the first
paragraph of subsection (a) and subsection (b), as Congress explicitly did
in subsections (d) (18 U.S.C. 2113(d)) and (e) (18 U.S.C. 2113(e)) for other
offenses established in Section 2113.4
Section 2113(a) provides, in its first paragraph, that, "[w]hoever,
by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, *
* * any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in
the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank, credit
union, or any savings and loan association," is guilty of an offense
that is punishable by up to twenty years in prison. 18 U.S.C. 2113(a). Section
2113(b), by contrast, provides that anyone who "takes and carries away,
with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or any other thing
of value exceeding $1,000 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control,
management, or possession of any bank, credit union, or any savings and
loan association," is guilty of an offense punishable by up to ten
years in prison. 18 U.S.C. 2113(b) (Supp. IV 1998) (emphasis added). Section
2113(b) thus requires proof, as the italicized terms indicate, of three
elements not present in Section 2113(a): (1) a specific intent to steal
or purloin; (2) a requirement that the property be "carr[ied] away";
and (3) a provision that the property taken have a monetary value.
1. Bank larceny, unlike bank robbery, requires proof of a specific intent
to steal
a. While bank larceny contains an express "intent to steal or purloin"
element, bank robbery has no such mental element in its text. The omission
of that phrase is significant. Although the phrases "general intent"
and "specific intent" have "been the source[s] of a good
deal of confusion," United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 403 (1980),
"[t]he distinction between 'general intent' and 'specific intent' is
not without importance in the criminal law," 1 W. LaFave & A. Scott,
Substantive Criminal Law 315 (1986 & Supp. 1999).
[T]he most common usage of "specific intent" is to designate a
special mental element which is required above and beyond any mental state
required with respect to the actus reus of the crime. Common law larceny,
for example, requires the taking and carrying away of the property of another,
and the defendant's mental state as to this act must be established, but
in addition it must be shown that there was an "intent to steal"
the property.
1 W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra, at 315 (emphasis added). By including
a specific intent requirement in Section 2113(b) but not in the first paragraph
of Section 2113(a), Congress intended that a prosecution for bank larceny
establish a "special mental element * * * above and beyond" the
general mental state required for the actus reus of the crime. Congress's
omission of the specific "intent to steal" from the first paragraph
of Section 2113(a) also contrasts with its provision of a different specific
intent element-the "intent to commit in such bank * * * any felony
affecting such bank" in the second paragraph of Section 2113(a).5 That
aspect of Section 2113(a) strongly suggests that if Congress had intended
to require proof of an "intent to steal" to establish bank robbery,
it would have said so expressly. Indeed, one court of appeals has concluded
that the omission of a specific intent element in the first paragraph of
Section 2113(a) and the inclusion of specific intent elements in the second
paragraph of Section 2113(a) and in Section 2113(b) "shows careful
draftsmanship." United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 490 (1st Cir.),
cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1037 (1970).6
b. The omission of a specific intent requirement in the bank robbery offense
in Section 2113(a) is consistent with robbery offenses defined elsewhere
in the criminal code. Unlike larceny, which federal law has consistently
defined to require proof of a specific intent permanently to deprive, robbery
has not always been defined that way. In 1946, Congress amended the Hobbs
Anti-Racketeering Act (Hobbs Act), 18 U.S.C. 1951, to punish certain extortion
and robbery offenses. The 1946 amendment defined robbery as the "unlawful
taking * * * of personal property, from the person * * * by means of actual
or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury." Act of July 3,
1946, ch. 537, § 1(b), 60 Stat. 420. No specific intent element was
provided. That definition was carried over to the present version of 18
U.S.C. 1951 during the 1948 codification. See Act of June 25, 1948, ch.
645, 62 Stat. 683.7
The absence of an express intent to steal element is characteristic of other
federal robbery statutes, many of which merely define robbery as the forcible
taking of the victim's property and omit any reference to a specific mental
requirement. For example, Section 2111 criminalizes robbery in the special
maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and does not
contain an express specific intent to steal requirement. 18 U.S.C. 2111.
The same is true of Section 2118(a), which Congress enacted in 1984 to criminalize
robbery of controlled substances. 18 U.S.C. 2118(a). And Section 2119, which
Congress enacted in 1992 to reach carjacking offenses, contains no explicit
intent-to-steal element; rather, it requires proof of an "intent to
cause death or serious bodily harm." 18 U.S.C. 2119 (Supp. IV 1998).8
In enacting Section 2119, Congress specifically tracked the language of
Sections 2111, 2113, and 2118. See H.R. Rep. No. 851, 102d Cong., 2d Sess.
Pt. 1, at 17 (1992). In discussing the "with intent to cause death
or serious bodily harm" element of the carjacking statute, Senator
Leahy noted in 1997 that "knowingly" is the only mental element
required for the usual robbery offense. See 143 Cong. Rec. S1661 (daily
ed. Feb. 26, 1997) ("Robbery offenses typically require only what the
carjacking statute formerly required by way of scienter, i.e., that property
be knowingly taken from the person or presence of another by force and violence
or by intimidation.").
Like the omission of a specific intent element in Section 2113(a), the omission
of an intent to steal from those other federal robbery statutes cannot be
attributed to inadvertence.9 While common law robbery was generally understood
to contain a specific intent to steal element, see pp. 29-30, infra, "Congress'
silence [in Section 2113(a)] speaks volumes * * * [and] Congress appears
to have made the choice quite deliberately" in omitting any such requirement
from Section 2113(a). United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10, 14 (1994) (holding
that absence of an overt act requirement from 21 U.S.C. 846 was dispositive,
notwithstanding that such proof was required for common law conspiracy).
c. State robbery statutes, like the various robbery offenses in Title 18,
vary widely as to whether the specific intent to steal is an element of
robbery. In most States, robbery has been defined by the state legislature
as a greater offense of larceny (or theft) and thus to require proof of
a specific intent to steal. See, e.g., Ala. Code § 13A-8-43 (1994)
(defining robbery as use of force "in the course of committing a theft,"
which under Section 13A-8-2 is defined as knowingly exerting control over
property "with intent to deprive the owner of his property");
Ark. Code Ann. § 5-12-102 (Michie 1997) ("A person commits robbery
if, with the purpose of committing a felony or misdemeanor theft or resisting
apprehension immediately thereafter, he employs or threatens to immediately
employ physical force upon another."); Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. §
53a-133 (West 1994) ("A person commits robbery when, in the course
of committing a larceny, he uses or threatens the immediate use of physical
force upon another person."); N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 636:1 (1996)
(defining robbery as use or threat of physical force "in the course
of committing a theft"). State courts construing such statutes have
held that the government must prove that the defendant had a specific intent
to deprive the victim of his property. See, e.g., People v. Ocasio, 697
N.Y.S.2d 368, 369-370 (App. Div. 1999); State v. Celaya, 660 P.2d 849, 852-853
(Ariz. 1983) (in banc); State v. Nix, 922 S.W.2d 894. 901 (Tenn. Crim. App.
1995).
By contrast to those States that contain a specific mental element requirement
in the statutory definition of robbery, a number of States do not provide
for such a mental element in the statutory crime of robbery. In those States,
the state courts uniformly have held that the specific intent to steal should
not be read into the robbery offense. See, e.g., State v. Payne, 540 So.
2d 520, 523-524 (La. Ct. App. 1989) (holding that under new Louisiana statute
"[a]rmed robbery is a general intent crime" for which the "criminal
intent necessary to sustain a conviction is shown by the very doing of the
acts which have been declared criminal"); Nell v. State, 642 P.2d 1361,
1366 (Alaska Ct. App. 1982) ("We see no reason to add to the statute
an intent to permanently deprive another of the property" because "the
legislature, in passing this robbery statute, intended to emphasize the
fact that robbery is a crime against the person and deemphasize the theft
aspects of the offense."); Litteral v. State, 634 P.2d 1226, 1227 (Nev.
1981) (sustaining trial court's refusal to "instruct the jury that
the defendant had to take the property with a specific intent to deprive
the victim permanently of his property" because statutory definition
of robbery did not require that element); People v. Moseley, 566 P.2d 331,
335 (Colo. 1977) (en banc) ("The statutory language contains no suggestion
that robbery requires any specific intent to permanently deprive the owner
of the use or benefit of the thing taken."); State v. Thompson, 558
P.2d 1079, 1086 (Kan. 1976) (noting that "the new statutes broadened
the statutory crime of robbery to cover any taking of property from the
person or presence of another by threat of bodily harm or by force [and]
[t]he requirement of a specific intent to deprive the owner permanently
of his property was eliminated"); Traxler v. State, 251 P.2d 815, 835
(Okla. Crim. App. 1953) (holding that state statute had changed common law
definition of robbery by not including element that "the taking be
with the felonious intent to take and permanently deprive the owner").10
Thus, although the practice in the States does not directly shed light on
what Congress intended in the drafting history of bank robbery in 18 U.S.C.
2113(a), Congress's omission of a specific intent element in the federal
bank robbery offense was not unusual in light of similar omissions (and
specific inclusions) by state legislatures that have created robbery offenses
in statutory law.
d. Although bank robbery has no specific intent to steal element, that does
not mean that it lacks a mental element altogether. The "existence
of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the exception to, the principles
of Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence." Staples, 511 U.S. at 605
(quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 436 (1978)).
There is a presumption that any federal criminal offense requires a mental
element. United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 72 (1994).
Accordingly, this Court has read a mental element into a criminal statute
even where the statute did not expressly provide for one. See Staples, supra
(possession of an unregistered firearm, in violation of 26 U.S.C. 5861(d));
Bailey, supra (escape, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 751(a)); United States
Gypsum Co., supra (Sherman Act); Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246
(1952) (theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 641).
In like fashion, the courts of appeals that have ruled that bank robbery
is not a specific intent crime have nevertheless construed the statute to
contain a "general intent" requirement. See, e.g., United States
v. Gonyea, 140 F.3d 649, 653-654 (6th Cir. 1998); United States v. Fazzini,
871 F.2d 635, 641 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 982 (1989); United
States v. Emery, 682 F.2d 493, 497 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1044
(1982); United States v. Smith, 638 F.2d 131, 132 (9th Cir. 1981); United
States v. Johnston, 543 F.2d 55, 58 (8th Cir. 1976); United States v. DeLeo,
supra.11 Those cases have held that a defendant must be shown to have acted
"knowingly" with respect to each actus reus, a view that is consistent
with the notion that, when a person performs acts proscribed by Congress,
criminal liability should be imposed regardless of whether that person desired
or merely knew of the practical certainty of the results. See Bailey, 444
U.S. at 404; United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. at 445; see generally 1
W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra, § 3.5.12 Those cases are also consistent
with the decisions of state courts, which, in construing robbery statutes
that lack a specific mental element, have held that robbery is a general
intent crime requiring proof that the defendant knew he was using force
to take property from the person of another. See pp. 18-19, supra.
e. Limiting the mental element of bank robbery to "knowingly"
taking by force, violence, or intimidation, instead of an intent to steal,
is appropriate in light of the character of that crime. "[T]he gist
of [robbery] is a crime against the person." United States v. Mann,
119 F. Supp. 406, 407 (D.D.C. 1954). Without regard to the robber's intent
to steal, the robbery offense warrants sanction because of the fear it instills
in the victims and the risk that they will suffer harm, be it physical or
emotional. Bank robberies often occur when employees and customers are in
the bank, and robbers often carry and use firearms to gain an advantage
over the people inside. After a robbery or attempted robbery, the bank may
have to interrupt its business to attend to the needs of the victims, to
cooperate with authorities, and to reassure its customers. For those reasons,
the bank robbery offense defined in Section 2113(a) punishes the attempt
to rob as well as the completed act.
Because the use of force, violence, and intimidation causes social harms
regardless of whether the robber has a specific intent to dispossess the
bank of its property permanently, it is logical to construe the first paragraph
of Section 2113(a) as not requiring a specific intent to steal. The bank
robbery statute "describe[s] acts which, when performed, are so unambiguously
dangerous to others that the requisite mental element is necessarily implicit
in the description." DeLeo, 422 F.2d at 491. "It therefore is
immaterial for sections 2113(a) and (d) whether the subjective intent of
a bank robber is to steal that to which he has no claim or to recover his
own deposit; the crime is his resort to force and violence, or intimidation,
in the presence of another person to accomplish his purposes." Ibid.13
Larceny, on the other hand, is a crime principally committed against property,
see R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 343-344 (3d ed. 1982), and the
specific intent requirement has always been a critical element of that offense:
there is no larceny without an intent to deprive the owner permanently of
the property taken. 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law
§ 8.5 (1986 & Supp. 1999). The same cannot be said of bank robbery
in violation of Section 2113(a). Congress's decision to distinguish the
offenses in Section 2113 thus is a reasonable basis for a judgment that
the two crimes are different in nature and that the bank larceny offense
is not simply a lesser degree of bank robbery.14
2. Bank larceny, unlike bank robbery, requires proof that the defendant
"carries away" the property
The Section 2113(a) and (b) offenses also have different actus reus requirements.
Both offenses use the word "take[]" to describe the actus reus
of the crime. That word is defined as "[t]o get into one's hands or
into one's possession, power, or control by force or stratagem." Webster's
Third New International Dictionary 2329 (1986); cf. United States v. Moore,
73 F.3d 666, 668-669 (6th Cir.) (using that definition to define "take"
in the carjacking statute, 18 U.S.C. 2119 (Supp. IV 1998), and holding that
"[a]n intent to permanently deprive is not an element of the federal
offenses covering the mere 'taking' from the 'person or presence' of another")
(citing 18 U.S.C. 2111, 2113, 2118), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1228 (1996).
Section 2113(b), however, also requires that the perpetrator "carries
away" the property. The term "carry" is defined as "to
move while supporting." Webster's, supra, at 343; see Muscarello v.
United States, 524 U.S. 125, 128 (1998). The phrase, "carries away"
has common law antecedents, and means "[t]he act of removal or asportation,
by which the crime of larceny is completed, and which is essential to constitute
it." Black's Law Dictionary 194 (6th ed. 1986). That asportation element
is not present in the Section 2113(a) offense.
This Court has repeatedly noted that "a court should 'give effect,
if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.'" Moskal v. United
States, 498 U.S. 103, 109-110 (1990). That is particularly the case with
elements of criminal offenses. See Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135,
140-141 (1994). Thus, notwithstanding petitioner's assertion (Br. 40) that
Congress "tacitly included the asportation requirement as an element
of the offense," this Court ordinarily presumes "that Congress
acts intentionally and purposely" when including language in one part
of a statute but omitting it from another. Bates, 522 U.S. at 29-30. Given
that Congress specifically used the phrase "carries away" in Section
2113(b), it should not be lightly read into the text of Section 2113(a).
See ibid.
That conclusion is especially important here, where the phrase in question
had a distinctive common law connotation. As commentators explain, "[a]
movement does not amount to asportation unless it is a carrying-away movement."
R. Perkins & R. Boyce, supra, at 324. "The requirement of asportation
may be eliminated entirely by statute, * * * but so long as it is retained,
the common-law concept of a carrying-away movement should be required."
Ibid. See also 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra, at 348. Courts in States
that have codified robbery offenses without a "carry away" element
have uniformly held that the prosecution need not prove asportation.15 Likewise,
robbery as defined in Section 2113(a) should not be encumbered by common
law limitations that Congress expressly elected to retain only for the bank
larceny offense.
3. Bank larceny, unlike bank robbery, requires proof that the property has
a monetary value
A third textual element found in bank larceny but not in bank robbery is
the requirement that the prosecution prove that the property taken is reducible
to a monetary value. Section 2113(b) permits a sentence of up to ten years'
imprisonment if the stolen property exceeds $1000 in value, but only a sentence
of up to one year imprisonment if the value is less than that amount. Thus,
in a Section 2113(b) prosecution, the jury must be instructed to find that
the property taken exceeded the amount necessary to trigger the greater
punishment. See United States v. Hoke, 610 F.2d 678, 679 (9th Cir. 1980).
Section 2113(a), on the other hand, contains no such monetary requirement.
Rather, it proscribes the forceful taking of "any property or money
or any other thing of value belonging to" the financial institution
at issue, or the attempt to do so. Section 2113(a) thus criminalizes the
forceful taking of property without requiring a jury finding as to the value
of the property taken.
Petitioner contends (Br. 42-43) that the $1000 monetary threshold in Section
2113(b) bank larceny is a sentencing factor rather than an element of the
offense. That analysis is incorrect. The $1000 is not simply an enhancement
of the potential penalty a defendant faces. Rather, Congress deliberately
set out two grades of the larceny offense in separate paragraphs, each of
which defines a complete offense.16 In addition, the value of the property
taken differentiates a felony from a misdemeanor offense. See 18 U.S.C.
3559(a). The Fifth Amendment provides for federal felony charges to be made
by a grand jury indictment; no such requirement exists for misdemeanors.
See Ex parte Wilson, 114 U.S. 417, 429 (1885) (defining "infamous crime"
in Fifth Amendment as one "punishable by imprisonment at hard labor
in a * * * penitentiary"). See generally Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(a); W.
LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure § 15.1(a) at 616 (1985)
(Ex parte Wilson definition "encompasses all federal felony offenses").
Contrary to petitioner's citation (Br. 43-44), nowhere did Blackstone report
otherwise with regard to the "twelvepence" distinction between
grand larceny and petit larceny. Rather, even at common law the valuation
element differentiated the larceny offenses in a manner that would affect
how they were charged and proved at trial. See R. Perkins & R. Boyce,
supra, at 335 ("For many years the almost universal plan made grand
larceny a felony and petit larceny a misdemeanor, although there were wide
differences in the determination of the grade.").17
State practice supports that conclusion. Cf. Jones, 526 U.S. at 236 (discussing
bodily injury factor in state robbery statutes). State statutes with similar
language to the monetary valuation element in Section 2113(b) bank larceny
have held that, because the valuation element must be proved in a larceny
case, and because the prosecution need not prove a monetary value of the
property taken to establish robbery, larceny is not a lesser included offense
of robbery. State v. Boucino, 506 A.2d 125, 135 (Conn. 1986) (holding that
"the crimes of robbery in the first degree and larceny in the first
degree require proof of distinct elements * * * [because] [c]onviction for
robbery in the first degree requires proof of varying degrees of force *
* * [whereas] the state had to prove the value of the money taken from the
bank in order to obtain a conviction on the charge of larceny in the first
degree").18
B. The Legislative History Of Section 2113 Does Not Show Congressional Intent
To Make Bank Larceny A Lesser Included Offense Of Bank Robbery
In arguing that bank larceny should be treated as a lesser offense of bank
robbery, despite the textual elements of bank larceny not found in the putatively
"greater" offense, petitioner relies (Br. 14-20) on the rule of
statutory construction that "where a federal criminal statute uses
a common-law term of established meaning without otherwise defining it,
the general practice is to give that term its common-law meaning."
Moskal, 498 U.S. at 114 (quoting United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407,
411 (1957)). Because larceny was a lesser included offense of robbery at
common law, petitioner maintains that Congress must have intended to make
the crime proscribed in Section 2113(b) a lesser included offense of the
Section 2113(a) crime. See Pet. Br. 24-26. That argument, however, cannot
be squared with the legislative history of Section 2113 or this Court's
prior construction of the statute. Those sources demonstrate that Congress
did not intend merely to codify the common law in Section 2113, but rather
intended to create federal offenses with specific elements designed to address
contemporary needs.
1. At common law, larceny was generally defined as the felonious taking
and carrying away of the personal goods of another with intent to deprive
the owner permanently of his property. See, e.g., 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries
*229, *232; 2 W. Burdick, The Law of Crime 258-263 (1946). Robbery was an
aggravated form of larceny; it contained all of the elements of larceny
plus two additional ones: (1) the property must be taken from the person
or presence of another (2) by means of force or putting in fear. See 2 W.
LaFave & A. Scott, supra, §§ 8.2, 8.11, at 333, 437-438. Common
law robbery was often defined in simple and undetailed language, such as
"the felonious and violent taking of goods or money from the person
of another by force or intimidation." Id. § 8.11 n.6. The phrase
"felonious * * * taking" meant a taking with the intent to deprive
the owner permanently of his property. R. Perkins & R. Boyce, supra,
at 343. Because, under common law, robbery contained all of the elements
of larceny (plus the additional elements of personal presence and force),
larceny is a lesser included offense of robbery in those jurisdictions that
have retained the common law definitions of the two crimes. See, e.g., Government
of the V.I. v. Jarvis, 653 F.2d 762, 765 (3d Cir. 1981); United States v.
Belt, 516 F.2d 873, 875 (8th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1056 (1976).
See generally R. Perkins & R. Boyce, supra, at 343 (defining "robbery"
as "larceny from the person by violence or intimidation").
2. As already interpreted by this Court's decisions, however, the language
and background of Section 2113 reveals that Congress did not intend to codify
the common law in that provision. Before 1934, banks organized under federal
law were protected against embezzlement (Rev. Stat. § 5209 (1875 ed.),
as amended by the Act of Sept. 26, 1918, ch. 177, § 5209, 40 Stat.
972), but not robbery, larceny, or burglary, which were punishable only
under state law. In 1934, Congress enacted the precursor to Section 2113(a)
in response to a series of bank robberies committed by John Dillinger and
other criminals who moved from State to State and were able to avoid capture
by state authorities. See Jerome v. United States, 318 U.S. 101, 102-104
(1943) (discussing legislative history of bank robbery statute); Bell v.
United States, 462 U.S. 356, 363-364 (1983) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (same).
The Attorney General proposed legislation (S. 2841, 73d Cong., 2d Sess.
(1934)) that would have prohibited robbery (§ 4), burglary (§
3), and theft (§ 2). The 1934 bill passed the Senate in that form,
but the House Judiciary Committee, without explanation, struck the burglary
and theft provisions from the bill. See Jerome, 318 U.S. at 102-104; Bell,
462 U.S. at 364 & n.2 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The bill enacted by
Congress applied to bank robbery and certain violent crimes committed during
a bank robbery. The bank robbery offense punished "[w]hoever, by force
and violence, or by putting in fear, feloniously takes, or feloniously attempts
to take, from the person or presence of another any property or money or
any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control,
management, or possession of, any bank." Act of May 18, 1934, ch. 304,
§ 2a, 48 Stat. 783.
The 1934 statute left gaps in its protection of federal banks. Because the
statute did not cover bank larceny, a person who stole money from a bank
without force, violence, or "putting in fear" was immune from
federal prosecution. In 1937, the Attorney General proposed amending the
bank robbery statute to close that loophole. See H.R. Rep. No. 732, 75th
Cong., 1st Sess. 1-2 (1937); Bell, 462 U.S. at 361; Jerome, 318 U.S. at
103. Congress ultimately passed a bill that prohibited bank larceny and
bank burglary. The 1937 statute's larceny offense punished "whoever
shall take and carry away, with intent to steal or purloin," property,
money, or anything of value from a bank. Act of Aug. 24, 1937, ch. 747,
50 Stat. 749. The 1937 version of bank larceny is identical to the version
presently codified in Section 2113(b) in all relevant respects.19
In 1948, Congress codified the criminal code. Act of June 25, 1948, ch.
645, 62 Stat. 683. As part of that codification, Congress made several changes
to the bank robbery offense. The principal statutory changes were the deletion
of the term "feloniously" before the terms "takes" and
"attempts" and the substitution of the term "intimidation"
for "putting in fear." 20 The Historical and Revision Notes (Reviser's
Note) to Section 2113 are silent on the reason for removing the term "feloniously"
from the bank robbery offense. The Reviser's Note stated, in language that
mirrored the comprehensive House report accompanying the legislation, that
"[n]ecessary minor translations of section references, and changes
in phraseology, were made." See also H.R. Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong.,
1st Sess. A135 (1947) (same language used by House Committee to explain
change).
3. As the foregoing history demonstrates, the offenses in Section 2113(a)
and (b) do not simply replicate their common law antecedents of robbery
and larceny. The 1934 and 1937 statutes contained a mix of common law and
modern terms. The common law mental element of larceny-"feloniously
takes"-was incorporated into bank robbery in 1934 but eliminated in
1948. The mental element of bank larceny-"intent to steal or purloin"-"has
no established meaning at common law." Bell, 462 U.S. at 360.21
This Court has recognized that the 1934 and 1937 statutes contained elements
that were broader than the common law. See Bell, 462 U.S. at 361 ("Section
2113(b) * * * goes well beyond even this expanded definition" of the
common law crime of "larceny," and thus "the statutory language
does not suggest that it covers only common-law larceny."). At common
law, larceny was limited to thefts of tangible personal property. The statute,
however, covers theft of "any property or money or any other thing
of value." 18 U.S.C. 2113(a) and (b) (1994 & Supp. IV 1998). Moreover,
common law larceny required a theft from the possession of the owner. By
contrast, the bank larceny statute applies when the property is in the "care,
custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank." Ibid. Based
on that broad language, Bell held that bank larceny in Section 2113(b) is
not limited to common law larcenies. 462 U.S. at 360-361. For similar reasons,
there is no sound basis for importing common law elements into Section 2113(a)'s
robbery offense that Congress omitted from its text.
4. Petitioner contends (Br. 33-34) that the deletion of the term "feloniously"
from the bank robbery statute in the 1948 codification was inadvertent and
was not intended to delete the specific intent element from the offense
of bank robbery. He maintains that that amendment was part of Congress's
decision to delete most references to "felony" and "misdemeanor"
from the Code because those terms were defined in Section 1 of Title 18.
See 18 U.S.C. 1 (1982).22
Petitioner's contention is incorrect. When Congress deleted the term "felony"
or "misdemeanor" from a statute because of Section 1, the Reviser's
Notes to the statute specifically explained that as the reason for the change.23
By contrast, the Reviser's Note to Section 2113(a) is silent on the reason
for the deletion of "feloniously." See also H.R. Rep. No. 304,
supra, at A134-A135 (same). Thus, petitioner (Br. 32-34) has no basis for
asserting that Section 1 was the reason Congress deleted "feloniously"
from Section 2113(a).
The disputed deletion was not an isolated action. Congress also deleted
the term "feloniously" before the term "takes" in the
offense that proscribes a forceful taking within the special maritime and
territorial jurisdiction of the United States under Section 2111. 18 U.S.C.
2111; see Act of Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, § 284, 35 Stat. 1144.24 The
Reviser's Note gives no reason for that deletion, stating only that "[m]inor
changes were made in phraseology." See also H.R. Rep. No. 304, supra,
at A134 (same). Nor is petitioner aided by the statement in the Reviser's
Note that only changes "in phraseology" were made. Where Congress
specifically deletes or omits an element of an offense from the statute,
the change is substantive despite the Revisers' Notes to the contrary. See
Wells, 519 U.S. at 497 (noting that "[d]ropping the materiality element
from the three [bank offenses] could not, then, reasonably have been seen
as making no change" and that "[t]hose who write revisers' notes
have proven fallible before"); United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259,
268 n.6 (1997) ("The legislative intent of Congress is to be derived
from the language and structure of the statute itself, if possible, not
from the assertions of codifiers directly at odds with clear statutory language.").
In short, the Reviser's Notes are not a basis for disregarding the plain
language of Section 2113(a), which, unlike Section 2113(b), does not contain
specific intent, asportation, or monetary valuation requirements.
C. Precedent And Canons Of Statutory Interpretation Do Not Support Petitioner's
Argument
1. Petitioner contends (Br. 36-37) that Prince v. United States, 352 U.S.
322 (1957), indicates that bank robbery contains the same intent to steal
element as bank larceny. That contention is mistaken. In Prince, the Court
held that Congress did not authorize cumulative punishment for convictions
for bank robbery and entering the bank with intent to commit a felony, both
of which are prohibited by Section 2113(a). The Court reasoned that Congress
inserted the offense of unlawful bank entry into the statute in 1937 to
reach a person who entered a bank to rob it but was able to obtain the bank's
money without using force or intimidation, and it inserted larceny offenses
for similar reasons. The Court stated that the statute could serve the purpose
of reaching those acts without being read to create completely independent
offenses. Thus, while it "was manifestly the purpose of Congress to
establish lesser offenses" in drafting the statute, the Court found
no indication that Congress intended to "pyramid" the penalties.
Id. at 327.
The Court's statements that Congress's purpose was to create lesser offenses
in the 1937 legislation and that the mental element of an intent to steal
required for unlawful bank entry "merges" into the offense of
bank robbery upon consummation of the robbery, 352 U.S. at 328, do not resolve
the issue in this case. First, the "narrow" issue before the Court,
id. at 325, was whether the statute authorized cumulative punishment for
the two offenses, and that was the only issue the Court resolved, id. at
324-325. Thus, even if this Court were to apply the holding of Prince to
convictions obtained under the first paragraph of Section 2113(a) and Section
2113(b), such a holding would not compel a trial court to give an instruction
for a lesser included offense if the government were to indict the defendant
only for a violation of Section 2113(a). A proper application of Prince
would require only that guilty verdicts under those two provisions be merged
into one conviction.
Merger analysis is separate from the lesser offense issue presented here.
Under this Court's cumulative punishment jurisprudence, the test is whether
Congress intended to authorize punishment for the two crimes to be imposed
cumulatively. If it so chooses, Congress can authorize cumulative punishment
for a greater and lesser offense. Cf. Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359 (1983);
Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 340 (1981). Likewise, Congress
can forbid cumulative punishment even where two crimes may not bear the
relation of greater and lesser offenses. See, e.g., Simpson v. United States,
435 U.S. 6, 11 (1978) (finding cumulative punishment barred for two offenses,
but not reaching question whether offenses were greater and lesser offenses).
Thus, it was not necessary for the Court in Prince to conclude that bank
robbery had an intent-to-steal element to hold that cumulative punishment
was barred for bank robbery and unlawful entry of a bank.
Second, although Prince remarked in passing that "the purpose of Congress
[was] to establish lesser offenses," 352 U.S. at 327, the Court in
that case did not analyze the lesser included offense issue by comparing
the elements of each offense. This Court's subsequent decision in Schmuck
now requires that approach. Indeed, in conducting its analysis, the Prince
Court did not even have before it a charge of Section 2113(b) bank larceny
in the case. Thus, Prince does not establish that bank larceny is a lesser
included offense of bank robbery.25
Finally, the essential holding of Prince is that Congress did not intend
to pyramid punishments for unlawful bank entry and completed bank robbery;
today that result would be achieved under the Sentencing Guidelines. Sentencing
under the Guidelines generally takes account of the total course of a defendant's
conduct and "groups" the related counts to prevent improper incremental
punishment for closely related counts. See Sentencing Guidelines Ch. 3,
Pt. D (1995). Thus, if a defendant in the position of petitioner were to
be charged and convicted separately of Section 2113(a) bank robbery and
Section 2113(b) bank larceny, the bank larceny conviction would have no
effect on petitioner's length of incarceration. See id. § 2B3.1 (Robbery
Guideline).
2. Petitioner also contends (Br. 34-35) that, under Morissette, supra, bank
robbery must be presumed to contain a mental element despite Congress's
failure to provide expressly for one during the codification of the statute
in 1948. That proposition is correct, but it does not lead to the conclusion
that the mental element in the first paragraph of Section 2113(a) is a specific
intent to steal.
In Morissette, 342 U.S. at 276, the Court read the offense of conversion
in the federal theft statute, 18 U.S.C. 641,26 to require proof of an intent
to "deprive another of possession of property," despite the absence
of such an element from the text of the statute. The Court reasoned that,
at common law, "there are unwitting acts which constitute conversions"
in the civil tort context. 342 U.S. at 270. "Had the statute applied
to conversions without qualification, it would have made crimes of all unwitting,
inadvertent and unintended conversions." Ibid.
As the Court reasoned, "It is not difficult to think of intentional
and knowing abuses and unauthorized uses of government property that might
be knowing conversions but which could not be reached as embezzlement, stealing
or purloining. Knowing conversion adds significantly to the range of protection
of government property without interpreting it to punish unwitting conversions."
342 U.S. at 272. The Court noted that, even though the "1948 Revision
was not intended to create new crimes but to recodify those then in existence,"
the offense of "'converts' does not appear in any of [18 U.S.C. 641's]
predecessors." 342 U.S. at 269 n.28.
The Court's analysis in Morissette does not apply to the bank robbery statute
for three reasons. First, the Court construed a common law word, "converts,"
and attributed to Congress the intent to include the associated mental element
from the common law where Congress had not otherwise specified the elements
of the crime. In the bank robbery and bank larceny offenses, however, Congress
specifically used some elements from the common law and changed others.
See pp. 33-34, supra. Second, in Morissette the Court emphasized the importance
of the mental element in avoiding criminalizing what otherwise would be
"unwitting, inadvertent and unintended conversions." 342 U.S.
at 270. That concern is not present in the bank robbery context, because
the defendant's knowing use of force to take property is sufficient to demonstrate
culpable conduct. See, e.g., DeLeo, supra.
Third, the 1948 codification of the bank robbery statute differs in important
respects from the history of Section 641. Congress's specific elimination
of "feloniously" from the bank robbery section of the statute,
while retaining the "intent to steal or purloin" element in the
bank larceny section of the statute, showed an "affirmative instruction"
to delete an intent to steal from the bank robbery statute. Morissette,
342 U.S. at 273. Congress is presumed to know the law when it legislates.
See Albernaz, 450 U.S. at 341. It knew that it could follow the common law
definition of robbery in the statute by simply using the word "rob"
or "robbery" in defining the offense, because previous statutes
using those terms had been interpreted as having incorporated the common
law meaning of the offense. See Harrison v. United States, 163 U.S. 140,
142 (1896) (statute prohibiting robbery of the mails). Thus, Congress must
be presumed to have understood that it was making a substantive change in
the law when it deleted the term "feloniously" from the bank robbery
statute.27
3. Petitioner's reliance (Br. 15-16) on Neder v. United States, 527 U.S.
1 (1999), is also misplaced. In Neder, the Court held that materiality is
an element of a "scheme or artifice to defraud" under the federal
mail fraud (18 U.S.C. 1341), wire fraud (18 U.S.C. 1343) and bank fraud
(18 U.S.C. 1344) statutes, despite the absence of an express materiality
element in the text of those offenses. The Court noted that, at common law,
"the well-settled meaning of 'fraud' required a misrepresentation or
concealment of material fact." 527 U.S. at 22. The Court noted that
Congress presumably intends to incorporate the meaning of common law terms
in criminal statutes and that it could not infer, absent a contrary indication
from Congress, that the mere omission of materiality evidenced an intent
to drop that element from the fraud statutes. Finding no such contrary indication
from the legislative history of the statutes, the Court concluded that materiality
was an element of those fraud statutes. Id. at 22-23.28
The bank robbery statute differs in important respects from the fraud statutes
in Neder. First, the fraud statutes used a common-law term that had an accepted
meaning, and the question was whether Congress intended to incorporate that
meaning into the offense; in contrast, the bank robbery statute uses a combination
of common-law and non-common-law terms to define the elements of the offense.
Petitioner thus is forced to argue that common-law terms ("take")
in Section 2113(a) incorporate other elements ("specific intent to
steal") or that the additional elements found in bank larceny but not
in robbery are unimportant. Second, unlike the federal fraud statutes, which
omitted an express materiality element from their inception, Congress expressly
deleted the "feloniously" element from the bank robbery statute
in 1948. Congress' express elimination of the common law mental element
from the statute demonstrates that Congress did not intend to restrict bank
robbery to its common law mental element.
II. EVEN IF BANK LARCENY IS A LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSE OF BANK ROBBERY UNDER
THE STATUTORY ELEMENTS TEST, THERE WAS NO ERROR IN THE CHARGE TO THE JURY
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(c) entitles a defendant to a lesser
included offense instruction only if the evidence would permit a rational
jury to convict him of the lesser offense while acquitting him of the greater
one. Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 208 (1973); Stevenson v. United
States, 162 U.S. 313, 314-315 (1896). Thus, a factual dispute must exist
as to an element of the greater offense that, if resolved in the defendant's
favor, would still result in a conviction on the lesser offense. See Sansone
v. United States, 380 U.S. 343, 350-351 (1965); see also 1 L. Sand et al.,
Modern Federal Jury Instructions ¶ 9.07, at 9-29. If there is no factual
dispute, the court need not give a charge for the lesser included offense.
See, e.g., United States v. Baker, 985 F.2d 1248, 1259 (4th Cir. 1993),
cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1040 (1994); United States v. Payne, 805 F.2d 1062,
1067 (D.C. Cir. 1986). Thus, in addition to all of the elements of the uncharged
offense being encompassed within the charged offense and to having fewer
elements than the charged offense, the evidence must support a conviction
on the lesser, but not the greater, offense charged. See Schmuck, 489 U.S.
at 717 & n.9; Sansone, 380 U.S. at 350; Berra v. United States, 351
U.S. 131, 134 (1956).
In this case, the district court specifically instructed the jury on whether
petitioner had taken property "by force and violence, or by intimidation":
Now the phrase by force and violence or by intimidation used in the statute
means either first, the use of actual physical strength or actual physical
violence; or second, doing some act or making some statement to put someone
in fear of bodily harm.
The intimidation must be caused by an act knowingly and deliberately done
or a statement knowingly and deliberately made by the particular defendant
and that it was done in such a manner or under such circumstances that would
produce such a reaction or such fear of bodily harm in a reasonable person.
J.A. 56. The court also properly denied petitioner's Rule 29 motion for
acquittal, concluding that "the facts of this case are far removed
from a peaceable and stealthy theft of money from this bank and I think
that a reasonable jury could indeed find beyond a reasonable doubt * * *
[that] the behavior of [petitioner] was such as could put a reasonable person
in fear of bodily harm and that that could amount to force or intimidation
such as to satisfy the third element of the bank robbery offense."
Id. at 32. Petitioner's contrary claim, which the district court correctly
rejected, rests on the assumption that a jury could find that he obtained
funds from the banks with intent to steal them-and thus was guilty of bank
larceny-without also finding that he used intimidation to obtain the money.
Despite petitioner's efforts in his own testimony to convince the jury that
he had not used force or intimidation, see C.A. App. 180-189, the evidence
showed that intimidation occurred.29
More importantly, as the district court properly concluded, no reasonable
juror could find otherwise, as there was no evidence to suggest that the
tellers handed petitioner thousands of dollars in bank money voluntarily
and of their own free will, i.e., without intimidation. Certainly there
was no evidence that the tellers were petitioner's accomplices. Nor was
there evidence that petitioner filled out a withdrawal slip or performed
any other act that would cause a teller voluntarily to hand him cash. To
the contrary, the evidence can support only one conclusion: petitioner gained
access to the teller station and took the money "by intimidation"
within the meaning of Section 2113(a). Because no reasonable juror could
reach the contrary conclusion, no bank larceny instruction was required,
even if this Court were to conclude that bank larceny is a lesser included
offense of bank robbery under the statutory elements test.30
CONCLUSION
The judgment of the court of appeals should be affirmed.
Respectfully submitted.
SETH P. WAXMAN
Solicitor General
JAMES K. ROBINSON
Assistant Attorney General
MICHAEL R. DREEBEN
Deputy Solicitor General
DAVID C. FREDERICK
Assistant to the Solicitor
General
THOMAS E. BOOTH
Attorney
MARCH 2000
1 Petitioner previously had pleaded guilty to an indictment charging three
counts of bank larceny, in violation of 28 U.S.C. 2113(b) (Supp. IV 1998),
in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The case was transferred, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure
20, to the District of New Jersey for sentencing. He was sentenced on those
convictions to a concurrent term of 120 months' imprisonment. J.A. 64-70.
2 Although petitioner acknowledges that Schmuck requires analysis of the
textual elements of the putatively greater and lesser offenses, he maintains
that Schmuck does not require "a mechanical literalism" of examining
whether the words defining the elements in the two provisions are the same.
Pet. Br. 10. Petitioner's approach, however, is inconsistent with how this
Court analyzed textual elements in cases addressing whether one offense
is necessarily included within another. See Schmuck, 489 U.S. at 721-722
("[K]nowingly and willfully tampering with an odometer is not identical
to devising or intending to devise a fraudulent scheme.") (comparing
18 U.S.C. 1341 with 15 U.S.C. 1984 and 1998c(a)); Sansone v. United States,
380 U.S. 343, 352-353 (1965) (analyzing elements of 26 U.S.C. 7207 and concluding
that they are a subset of elements in 26 U.S.C. 7201).
3 Section 2113 punishes diverse crimes against banks. Section 2113(a) provides,
in separate paragraphs, that bank robbery and entry into a bank with the
intent to commit a felony therein are crimes punishable by up to 20 years'
imprisonment. Section 2113(b) provides that bank larceny of property exceeding
$1000 is a crime punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment. In a separate
paragraph, Section 2113(b) states that bank larceny of property not exceeding
$1000 is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $1000, imprisonment not to
exceed one year, or both.
Section 2113(c) makes receipt of stolen bank property a crime and provides
for the punishment set forth in Section 2113(b). 18 U.S.C. 2113(c). Section
2113(d) states that aggravated assault during a bank robbery or bank larceny
is a crime and provides for up to 25 years' imprisonment. 18 U.S.C. 2113(d).
Section 2113(e) provides that a homicide or kidnapping committed during
the commission of a crime against a bank defined in this section is subject
to a minimum of ten years' imprisonment for the kidnapping and life imprisonment
for the homicide. 18 U.S.C. 2113(e).
4 Section 2113(d), for example, is a greater offense of those created in
subsections (a) and (b), because it provides that "[w]hoever, in committing,
or in attempting to commit, any offense defined in subsections (a) and (b)
of this section, assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any
person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, shall be * * * imprisoned
not more than twenty-five years." 18 U.S.C. 2113(d).
Similarly, Section 2113(e) expresses an unequivocal intent to create a greater
offense by providing that, "[w]hoever, in committing any offense defined
in this section, * * * kills any person, * * * shall be imprisoned not less
than ten years, or if death results shall be punished by death or life imprisonment."
18 U.S.C. 2113(e).
5 The second paragraph of Section 2113(a) is sometimes referred to as the
bank burglary offense. The interrelationship between the bank burglary offense,
which is not at issue in this case, and Section 2113(b) is not entirely
clear. The second paragraph of Section 2113(a) makes it an offense to enter
a bank "with intent to commit * * * any larceny." 18 U.S.C. 2113(a).
As one commentator has noted:
[D]espite the fact that section 2113(b) carries a lesser maximum penalty
than section 2113(a), it does not seem that section 2113(b) is a lesser
included offense of the second paragraph of section 2113(a) * * * . Consequently,
when prosecutors are presented with crimes that would seem to be section
2113(b) violations, it appears that they can attempt to prosecute the defendant
under the second paragraph of section 2113(a) with no limitations.
3 L. Sand et al., Modern Federal Jury Instructions ¶ 53.01, at 53-4
(1999).
6 Petitioner is not assisted by his contention (Br. 11-14) that structural
features of Section 2113 require deeming bank larceny to be a lesser included
offense of bank robbery. First, petitioner notes (Br. 11-12) that Section
2113(c) creates a crime of receiving stolen property that expressly applies
only to bank larceny. Petitioner argues that it would be unusual for Congress
not to punish receipt of property after a robbery as well. The answer, however,
is that in most cases receipt of the proceeds of bank robbery will be covered
by Section 2113(c). See note 25, infra. In any event, nothing in Section
2113(c) purports to redefine the elements required under Section 2113(a).
Second, petitioner observes (Br. 13-14) that Section 2113(a) punishes, in
its second paragraph, entering a bank with the intent to commit a federal
felony affecting the bank "or any larceny." That provision does
not imply that larceny is a lesser offense of robbery; rather, the unlawful-entry
provision applies comprehensively to all federal felonies affecting the
bank. See, e.g., United States v. Pick, 724 F.2d 297 (2d Cir. 1983) (mail
fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1341 also a predicate offense for unlawful bank entry
offense of second paragraph 18 U.S.C. 2113(a)).
7 Accordingly, courts have held that requests for specific intent instructions
in Hobbs Act cases are properly denied, with the requisite intent being
knowledge. See, e.g., United States v. Arambasich, 597 F.2d 609, 614 (7th
Cir. 1979) (specific intent instruction not required under Hobbs Act); United
States v. Warledo, 557 F.2d 721, 729 n.3 (10th Cir. 1977) ("Under the
clauses of Section 1951, proscribing the obstruction, delay, or attempt
to obstruct commerce by robbery or extortion, a general intent to commit
those crimes is required.").
8 In Holloway v. United States, 526 U.S. 1 (1999), this Court held that
proof of a person's conditional intent "to cause death or serious bodily
harm" under 18 U.S.C. 2119 (Supp. IV 1998) satisfied that mental element.
9 Other-usually older-statutes use the term "rob" or "robbery"
without further elaboration. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 2112 (robbery of personal
property of United States); 18 U.S.C. 2114 (robbery of mail matter); 18
U.S.C. 1661 (robbery ashore). Those statutes, unlike Section 2113(a), retain
the common law meaning of robbery. See p. 41, infra.
10 It appears to be quite rare for a State not to have codified the robbery
offense. Virginia, for example, has never codified the elements of robbery,
relying instead on the common law definition. See Cox v. Commonwealth, 240
S.E.2d 524 (Va. 1978); Ayres v. Commonwealth, 161 S.E. 888, 897 (Va. 1932)
("At common law robbery is defined as the taking, with intent to deprive
the owner permanently, of personal property, from his person or in his presence,
against his will, by violence or intimidation."); see also Va. Code
Ann. § 18.2-58 (Michie 1996) (defining punishment for person who commits
robbery).
11 Those courts were considering whether diminished capacity is a defense
to bank robbery. Because "diminished capacity is a defense only to
specific intent crimes," evidence of alcohol-induced unconsciousness
and other forms of diminished capacity is irrelevant in a Section 2113(a)
case because "completed armed bank robbery is a general intent crime."
Fazzini, 871 F.2d at 641; see also Smith, 638 F.2d at 132.
12 In this case, the indictment and the jury instructions establish that
the jury found that petitioner committed his robberies with the requisite
intent. The indictment alleged that petitioner acted "knowingly and
willfully." J.A. 2. The jury was instructed that the intimidation element
required proof that petitioner acted "knowingly and deliberately."
J.A. 56. The jury was charged that the "knowingly" element was
to ensure that no person would be convicted of an act done by mistake, accident,
or other innocent reason. J.A. 55. The district court's ruling on petitioner's
Rule 29 motion for acquittal further establishes that sufficient evidence
existed of defendant's knowing use of intimidation to take the money from
the bank. J.A. 23-32.
13 Undoubtedly, most bank robbers will intend to deprive the bank permanently
of its property, but that will not invariably be the case. One reported
court of appeals' decision records that a man robbed a bank solely to be
apprehended and returned to prison so he could be treated for his alcohol
problem. See United States v. Lewis, 628 F.2d 1276 (10th Cir. 1980), cert.
denied, 450 U.S. 924 (1981). We are informed by the FBI that indictments
are brought as often as every year against former incarcerees who commit
bank robbery with the intent not of taking the money but of being returned
to prison because of their inability to cope with life in free society.
Because those cases invariably result in guilty pleas, they do not result
in reported decisions. The same is true in the less frequent instance of
bank robbers who rob banks primarily to disrupt the bank's business with
violence. Terrorists, for example, may well be indifferent to the fate of
the bank's property. Those sorts of robberies nevertheless come within the
coverage of Section 2113(a).
14 Petitioner suggests that the "intent to steal or purloin" element
from Section 2113(b) may be inferred in Section 2113(a) from the words "takes
. . . from the person of another" (emphasis added) since the definition
of steal is "to take the property of another." Pet. Br. 11 (emphasis
added). That imprecise reading of the statute, however, would lead to incongruous
results. A robber may forcefully take property from another person believing
himself to be the rightful owner, intending to return it, or seeking to
have himself apprehended so that he can be re-incarcerated. Such wrongful
behavior would not be stealing, since there would be no intent to deprive
permanently the owner of the property. Ironically, although throughout his
brief petitioner advocates incorporation of common-law elements in the bank
robbery statute notwithstanding their explicit omission, petitioner asks
this Court to expand the statutory definition of "takes"-one of
the few common-law words adopted by Congress in defining the Section 2113(a)
offense-well beyond its common law meaning of obtaining possession of property.
See R. Perkins & R. Boyce, supra, at 302-303.
15 See, e.g., State v. Boyle, 970 S.W.2d 835, 838 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998) (upholding
robbery conviction where defendant had not moved the property because under
state statute "asportation is not an element of robbery"); State
v. Valdez, 977 P.2d 242, 253 (Kan. 1999) ("Commission of robbery is
complete when the robber takes possession of property; the element of asportation
is not required to complete theft or robbery" under Kan. Stat. Ann.
§ 21-3426 (1995).); Johnson v. State, 744 So. 2d 833, 837 (Miss. Ct.
App. 1999) (noting that "[p]roof of asportation, though an element
of larceny, is not necessarily an element of robbery" since the statute
includes as robbery "the mere attempt to take the property of another
from his person or presence"); State v. Gore, 722 N.E.2d 125, 129 (Ohio
Ct. App. 1999) (noting that "a robbery does not necessarily require
asportation" under Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2911.01(A)(1) (Anderson
1999)). By contrast, in States where asportation is an element of robbery,
courts have overturned convictions for failure by the prosecution to prove
that the defendant carried away the property taken. See, e.g., State v.
Johnson, 558 N.W.2d 375 (Wis. 1997) (rejecting State's argument that asportation
is not an element of robbery and holding that robbery of car involved no
asportation where it failed to start or move).
16 Each paragraph begins with the word, "whoever"; it then describes
the prohibited conduct, the intent required, and the nature of the property
taken; and it concludes with a sentencing provision. That is the natural
way to define a free-standing offense. See Jones v. United States, 526 U.S.
227, 233-234 (1999).
17 The monetary valuation element in the theft of government property offense
of 18 U.S.C. 641 distinguishes between felony and misdemeanor theft based
on the value of the property taken. Courts appear uniformly to hold that
the government must charge in the indictment and prove to the jury that
the value of the property exceeds the threshold for felony theft. See, e.g.,
United States v. DiGilio, 538 F.2d 972, 978 (3d Cir. 1976) (valuation an
element of Section 641 offense), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1038 (1977); Stevens
v. United States, 297 F.2d 664, 665 (10th Cir. 1961) (per curiam) ("Value
is an essential element of the offense [under 18 U.S.C. 641] which must
be alleged and proved in the same manner as any other essential element
of the offense."); United States v. Wilson, 284 F.2d 407, 408 (4th
Cir. 1960) (holding value an element of the offense); Cartwright v. United
States, 146 F.2d 133, 135 (5th Cir. 1944) (considering it "well settled
that where the grade of larceny, and consequently the punishment, depend
on the value of the property, it is essential that the value of the property
defendant is charged with having taken be alleged and proved").
18 See State v. McGarrett, 535 N.W.2d 765, 769 (S.D. 1995) (applying statutory
elements test, grand theft under state statute is not lesser included offense
of robbery, because "grand theft requires the stolen property be in
excess of $500 [whereas] robbery can be committed without complying with
that dollar amount"); State v. Ates, 377 S.E.2d 98, 99 n.1 (S.C. 1989)
("In a grand larceny prosecution, value is a critical element; it is
the State's burden to prove that the value of stolen goods exceeds $200.");
State v. Redding, 331 N.W.2d 811, 813-815 (Neb. 1983) (holding value an
element of larceny but ruling that failure to include it was harmless error);
State v. Combs, 316 N.W.2d 880, 883 (Iowa 1982) (holding that monetary valuation
is element of second degree theft); People v. Myers, 73 N.E.2d 288, 291
(Ill. 1947) (holding indictment for larceny "fatally defective"
in part "for failure to allege the value of the goods stolen");
Haley v. State, 315 So. 2d 525, 527 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1975) (holding
that grand larceny "is not necessarily included in the offense of robbery"
because grand larceny "contains an element not present in the offense
of robbery: that the value of the property stolen was one hundred dollars
or more"); Coker v. State, 396 So.2d 1094, 1096 (Ala. Crim. App. 1981)
("[w]hether or not a theft in a particular case is of one degree or
another is a question of fact addressed to the jury").
19 Petitioner argues (Br. 31) that because the 1937 legislation used the
common law word "larceny" in its caption, Congress intended for
bank larceny to be a lesser included offense of bank robbery. The title
to the 1937 law, however, is irrelevant to the construction of the bank
robbery offense, since that offense was amended in 1948. In any event, the
title to the statute is useful only if there is ambiguity in the text; it
may not limit the plain meaning of the statute. See, e..g., Pennsylvania
Dep't of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 212 (1998); Railroad Trainmen
v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., 331 U.S. 519, 528-529 (1947).
20 The 1948 revision also amended the bank burglary offense by substituting
the phrase "felony affecting such bank and in violation of any statute
of the United States, or any larceny" for the term "felony or
larceny." The Historical and Revision Notes (Reviser's Note) indicate
that that change was intended to conform the statute to the Court's decision
in Jerome, which held that the term "felony" in the bank burglary
offense embraced only those offenses that are felonies under federal law
affecting banks protected by the Act. See also H.R. Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong.,
1st Sess. A135 (1947) (same).
21 In Turley, 352 U.S. at 411-412, the Court noted that the term "steal[]"
had no accepted common law meaning and was never equated with larceny. See
Factor v. Laubenheimer, 290 U.S. 276, 303 (1933). Similarly, the term "purloin,"
which was not included in the common law definition of larceny (see LeMasters
v. United States, 378 F.2d 262, 264 (9th Cir. 1967)), is virtually synonymous
with "steal" and encompasses a broader range of theft offenses
than common law larceny. See United States v. Johnson, 575 F.2d 678, 679-680
(8th Cir. 1978).
An "intent to steal" has a broader scope than the common law's
intent to deprive the owner permanently of his property. An intent to steal
includes the intent to deprive permanently or for an unreasonable length
of time, or in such a way that the owner will thus be deprived of his property.
See 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra, § 8.5. By contrast, a person
does not have a common law intent to steal if he intends to return the very
property taken, and it is unclear whether it is a defense that he intended
to return equivalent property. Id. §§ 8.5(a), 8.5(b), at 358-359,
359-362.
22 Congress codified those terms in one section because, before 1948, the
lack of uniformity in statutory usages of "felony" and "misdemeanor"
had caused courts to diverge when assessing whether a particular crime should
be punished as a felony or a misdemeanor. See H.R. Rep. No. 304, supra,
at A2-A4. Section 1 of Title 18 was repealed by Department of the Interior
and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, Pub. L. No. 98-473, Tit. II, §
218(a)(1), 98 Stat. 2027.
23 See, e.g., Reviser's Note to 18 U.S.C. 751 ("References to offenses
as felonies or misdemeanors were omitted in view of definitive section 1
of this title."), H.R. Rep. No. 304, supra, at A67 (same); Reviser's
Note to 18 U.S.C. 550 ("Reference to felony * * * was omitted as unnecessary
in view of definition of felony in section 1 of this title."), H.R.
Rep. No. 304, supra, at A47 (same); Reviser's Note to 18 U.S.C. 2076 ("The
reference to the offense as a misdemeanor was omitted as unnecessary in
view of the definition of 'misdemeanor' in section 1 of this title."),
H.R. Rep. No. 304, supra, at A134 (same); Reviser's Note to 18 U.S.C. 1951
("Provisions designating offense as felony were omitted as unnecessary
in view of definitive section 1 of this title"), H.R. Rep. No. 304,
supra, at A131 (same).
24 Section 2111 of Title 18 provides: "Whoever, within the special
maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, by force and
violence, or by intimidation, takes or attempts to take from the person
or presence of another anything of value, shall be imprisoned not more than
fifteen years."
25 Nor does this Court's decision in United States v. Gaddis, 424 U.S. 544
(1976), support the conclusion that Section 2113(b) is a lesser included
offense of bank robbery. In that case, the Court held that a defendant could
not be separately convicted for both committing bank robbery in violation
of Section 2113(a) and for receiving the proceeds of a bank theft in violation
of Section 2113(c). It also held that if a jury erroneously did so, the
defendant would not be entitled to a new trial if the evidence supported
the verdict as to conviction for the Section 2113(a) offense. Id. at 550.
While Gaddis could be taken to imply that bank larceny is a lesser offense
of bank robbery (since subsection (c) explicitly refers only to the larceny
and not the robbery subsection), that is not a point that the Court explicitly
made or on which it relied in its holding. Gaddis therefore simply prevents
unintended multiple punishments under Section 2113; it does not express
a view of greater and lesser offenses under that provision. Indeed, Gaddis
relied on Heflin v. United States, 358 U.S. 415, 419 (1959), which had stated
that "subsection (c) [of Section 2113] was not designed to increase
the punishment for him who robs a bank but only to provide punishment for
those who receive the loot from the robber." 424 U.S. at 547.
26 As the Court's opinion reflects, the text of 18 U.S.C. 641 at that time,
in pertinent part, made it an offense for anyone who "embezzles, steals,
purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without
authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or
thing of value of the United States." Morissette, 342 U.S. at 248 n.2.
27 Although petitioner has not invoked it, the rule of lenity does not justify
reading an "intent to steal" element into bank robbery. That rule
"applies only if, after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,
. . . we can make no more than a guess as to what Congress intended."
Muscarello, 524 U.S. at 138 (internal quotation marks omitted). Lenity thus
requires a narrow construction of a statute when the statute contains a
"grievous ambiguity or uncertainty." Staples, 511 U.S. at 619
n.17 (quoting Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 463 (1991)). In this
case, however, the language and the legislative history of Section 2113(a)
demonstrate that the omission of an "intent to steal" element
from bank robbery was deliberate. There is no "grievous ambiguity"
in Section 2113(a); thus the rule of lenity is not applicable. See Muscarello,
524 U.S. at 139.
28 The Court rejected the government's arguments that materiality was not
incorporated because the statutes were broader than the common law and that
other fraud statutes do not contain an express materiality element. 527
U.S. at 22-23 & n.7.
29 Petitioner entered the bank wearing a ski mask and several layers of
clothing even though it was warm outside; he restrained a customer from
leaving and pushed her back into the bank, causing her to be so terrified
that she screamed and later hid in her car praying on the floor of it; he
vaulted the teller counter and got so close to a teller that she yelled
"that a robber was after her"; he then vaulted back over the counter
and "warned that no one was to follow him." J.A. 82. Moreover,
other testimony established that the tellers and customer were terrified.
See, e.g., C.A. App. 32 (testimony of Maria Zahn) (testifying that "I
screamed out loud" because "I was scared"); id. at 79 (testimony
of Mildred Calacal) (describing fellow bank teller Christine Sentech as
"crying and trembling").
30 Because the same analysis will generally apply in bank robbery prosecutions,
the question whether bank larceny is a lesser included offense of bank robbery
would rarely affect the trials or results in bank robbery prosecutions.
Cases in which bank robbery defendants are able to present plausible evidence
that the tellers willingly allowed the defendant to take money from their
teller stations without intimidation are infrequent at best. It thus comes
as no surprise that the vast majority of cases that even mention the issue
presented in this case have upheld the trial court's refusal to give a bank
larceny instruction on the ground that it is not supported by the evidence.
See, e.g., United States v. Cornillie, 92 F.3d 1108, 1109-1110 (11th Cir.
1996); United States v. Sandles, 80 F.3d 1145, 1147 n.1 (7th Cir. 1996);
United States v. Walker, 75 F.3d 178, 180-181 (4th Cir.), cert. denied,
517 U.S. 1250 (1996); United States v. Lajoie, 942 F.2d 699, 700-701 (10th
Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 919 (1991); see also United States v. Perry,
991 F.2d 304, 310-311 (6th Cir. 1993) (declining to address the appellant's
contention that bank larceny is a lesser included offense because no rational
jury could find that the teller handed money to the defendant voluntarily).
APPENDIX
1. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(c) provides:
Conviction of Less Offense. The defendant may be found guilty of an offense
necessarily included in the offense charged or of an attempt to commit either
the offense charged or an offense necessarily included therein if the attempt
is an offense.
2. Section 2113 of Title 18 provides:
Bank robbery and incidental crimes
(a) Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts
to take, from the person or presence of another, or obtains or attempts
to obtain by extortion any property or money or any other thing of value
belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession
of, any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association; or
Whoever enters or attempts to enter any bank, credit union, or any savings
and loan association, or any building used in whole or in part as a bank,
credit union, or as a savings and loan association, with intent to commit
in such bank, credit union, or in such savings and loan association, or
building, or part thereof, so used, any felony affecting such bank, credit
union, or such savings and loan association and in violation of any statute
of the United States, or any larceny-
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years,
or both.
(b) Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any
property or money or any other thing of value exceeding $1,000 belonging
to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank,
credit union, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined under
this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; or
Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property
or money or any other thing of value not exceeding $1,000 belonging to,
or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank,
credit union, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined not more
than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
(c) Whoever receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes
of, any property or money or other thing of value which has been taken or
stolen from a bank, credit union, or savings and loan association in violation
of subsection (b), knowing the same to be property which has been stolen
shall be subject to the punishment provided in subsection (b) for the taker.
(d) Whoever, in committing, or in attempting to commit, any offense defined
in subsections (a) and (b) of this section, assaults any person, or puts
in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty-five
years, or both.
(e) Whoever, in committing any offense defined in this section, or in avoiding
or attempting to avoid apprehension for the commission of such offense,
or in freeing himself or attempting to free himself from arrest or confinement
for such offense, kills any person, or forces any person to accompany him
without the consent of such person, shall be imprisoned not less than ten
years, or if death results shall be punished by death or life imprisonment.
(f) As used in this section the term "bank" means any member bank
of the Federal Reserve System, and any bank, banking association, trust
company, savings bank, or other banking institution organized or operating
under the laws of the United States, including a branch or agency of a foreign
bank (as such terms are defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b)
of the International Banking Act of 1978), and any institution the deposits
of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
(g) As used in this section the term "credit union" means any
Federal credit union and any State-chartered credit union the accounts of
which are insured by the National Credit Union Administration Board, and
any "Federal credit union" as defined in section 2 of the Federal
Credit Union Act. The term "State-chartered credit union" includes
a credit union chartered under the laws of a State of the United States,
the District of Columbia, or any commonwealth, territory, or possession
of the United States.
(h) As used in this section, the term "savings and loan association"
means-
(1) a Federal savings association or State savings association (as defined
in section 3(b) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813(b)))
having accounts insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and
(2) a corporation described in section 3(b)(1)(C) of the Federal Deposit
Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813(b)(1)(C)) that is operating under the laws
of the United States.