Cite as: 519 U. S. 482 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
1926); 2 United States v. Kreidler, 11 F. Supp. 402, 403 (SD Iowa 1935).3 Given these federal cases and the absence of any common-law precedent for punishing immaterial false statements, it is far more likely that the revisers assumed that all of these statutes included the common-law requirement of materiality than that congressional silence was intended to make a dramatic change in the law.4 In my judgment, the fact that the materiality element had been expressly included in some of the predecessor statutes, and only implicitly included in the others, explains why the Reviser's Note could accurately state that the omission of the express reference to materiality was not a "change of substance." 5
At least three additional reasons support the conclusion that the revisers correctly assumed that all of the federal statutes criminalizing false statements included a materiality requirement that was sometimes implicit and sometimes
2 "If the false statements charged and proved were wholly frivolous and unrelated, it would in all probability be concluded that they did not supply the basis for a prosecution under [the Act]."
3 "We may assume that a statement . . . not likely to influence one exercising common prudence and caution, would not support the charge. . . . [I]t must be relevant and material."
4 The Court argues that these cases are not persuasive because they did not hold that the relevant predecessor statutes to § 1014 contained a materiality requirement. Ante, at 497-498, n. 20. Even if this is true, the fact remains that the only reported cases to address this issue stated that these statutes did contain a materiality requirement. The natural inference is that the prevailing view at the time, and therefore the prevailing view of the Congress that enacted § 1014, was that all "false statements" had to be material to result in criminal penalties. Instead of these cases, the Court asserts, Congress "likely . . . relied on the clear implication of our 1938 decision in Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1." Ante, at 498, n. 20. It is difficult to see how Congress could have relied on this "clear implication" when the opinion does not in any way address materiality, but instead holds that reliance is not a requirement of § 1014. See United States v. Goberman, 458 F. 2d 226, 229 (CA3 1972); United States v. Kernodle, 367 F. Supp. 844, 851-852 (MDNC 1973).
5 Historical and Revision Notes following § 1014, 18 U. S. C., p. 247.
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