Cite as: 504 U. S. 255 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
Circuits.2 Two Circuits, however, have held that an affirmative act of inducement by the public official is required to support a conviction of extortion under color of official right. United States v. O'Grady, 742 F. 2d 682, 687 (CA2 1984) (en banc) ("Although receipt of benefits by a public official is a necessary element of the crime, there must also be proof that the public official did something, under color of his public office, to cause the giving of benefits"); United States v. Aguon, 851 F. 2d 1158, 1166 (CA9 1988) (en banc) ("We find ourselves in accord with the Second Circuit's conclusion that inducement is an element required for conviction under the Hobbs Act"). Because the majority view is consistent with the common-law definition of extortion, which we believe Congress intended to adopt, we endorse that position.
II
It is a familiar "maxim that a statutory term is generally presumed to have its common-law meaning." Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 592 (1990). As we have explained: "[W]here Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed. In such case, absence of contrary direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a depar-2 See United States v. Garner, 837 F. 2d 1404, 1423 (CA7 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1035 (1988); United States v. Spitler, 800 F. 2d 1267, 1274-1275 (CA4 1986); United States v. Jannotti, 673 F. 2d 578, 594-596 (CA3) (en banc), cert. denied, 457 U. S. 1106 (1982); United States v. French, 628 F. 2d 1069, 1074 (CA8), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 956 (1980); United States v. Williams, 621 F. 2d 123, 123-124 (CA5 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 919 (1981); United States v. Butler, 618 F. 2d 411, 417-420 (CA6), cert. denied, 447 U. S. 927 (1980); United States v. Hall, 536 F. 2d 313, 320-321 (CA10), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 919 (1976); United States v. Hathaway, 534 F. 2d 386, 393-394 (CA1), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 819 (1976).
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