716
Opinion of Scalia, J.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Kennedy joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, and join Parts I-III and VI of Justice Stevens' opinion. United States v. Bramblett, 348 U. S. 503 (1955), should be overruled.
The doctrine of stare decisis protects the legitimate expectations of those who live under the law, and, as Alexander Hamilton observed, is one of the means by which exercise of "an arbitrary discretion in the courts" is restrained, The Federalist No. 78, p. 471 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Who ignores it must give reasons, and reasons that go beyond mere demonstration that the overruled opinion was wrong (otherwise the doctrine would be no doctrine at all).
The reason here, as far as I am concerned, is the demonstration, over time, that Bramblett has unacceptable consequences, which can be judicially avoided (absent overruling) only by limiting Bramblett in a manner that is irrational or by importing exceptions with no basis in law. Unlike Justice Stevens, I do not regard the Courts of Appeals' attempts to limit Bramblett as an " 'intervening development of the law,' " ante, at 713 (quoting Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 173 (1989)), that puts us to a choice between two conflicting lines of authority. Such "intervening developments" by lower courts that we do not agree with are ordinarily disposed of by reversal. See, e. g., McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 350 (1987). Instead, the significance I find in the fact that so many Courts of Appeals have strained so mightily to discern an exception that the statute does not contain, see ante, at 699, n. 2 (collecting cases), is that it demonstrates how great a potential for mischief federal judges have discovered in the mistaken reading of 18 U. S. C. § 1001, a potential we did not fully appreciate when Bramblett was decided. To be sure, since 18 U. S. C. § 1001's prohibition of concealment is violated only when
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