80
Scalia, J., dissenting
shipped in interstate commerce, would be ridiculous. Accordingly, I join the Court's opinion without qualification.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.
Today's opinion is without antecedent. None of the decisions cited as authority support interpreting an explicit statutory scienter requirement in a manner that its language simply will not bear. Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 (1994), discussed ante, at 71, and United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422 (1978), discussed ante, at 70, applied the background common-law rule of scienter to a statute that said nothing about the matter. Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246 (1952), discussed ante, at 70, applied that same background rule to a statute that did contain the word "knowingly," in order to conclude that "knowingly converts" requires knowledge not merely of the fact of one's assertion of dominion over property, but also knowledge of the fact that that assertion is a conversion, i. e., is wrongful.* Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419 (1985), discussed ante, at 70, again involved a statute that did contain the word " 'knowingly,' " used in such a fashion that it could reasonably and grammatically be thought to apply (1) only to the phrase " 'uses, transfers, acquires, alters, or possesses' " (which would cause a defendant to be liable without wrongful intent), or (2) also to the later phrase " 'in any manner not authorized by [the statute].' " Once again applying the background rule of scienter, the latter reasonable and permissible reading was preferred.
There is no way in which any of these cases, or all of them in combination, can be read to stand for the sweeping propo-*The case did not involve, as the Court claims, a situation in which, "even more obviously than in the statute presently before us, the word 'knowingly' in its isolated position suggested that it only attached to the verb 'converts,' " ante, at 70, and we nonetheless applied it as well to another word. The issue was simply the meaning of "knowingly converts."
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