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Scalia, J., dissenting
give the word a different meaning. And an accepted convention is not established by the fact that some courts have thought so some times. One must decide, I think, which line of cases is correct, and in my judgment it is that which rejects the conditional-intent rule.
There are of course innumerable federal criminal statutes containing an intent requirement, ranging from intent to steal, see 18 U. S. C. § 2113, to intent to defeat the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, see § 152(5), to intent that a vessel be used in hostilities against a friendly nation, see § 962, to intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights, see § 1204. Consider, for example, 21 U. S. C. § 841, which makes it a crime to possess certain drugs with intent to distribute them. Possession alone is also a crime, but a lesser one, see § 844. Suppose that a person acquires and possesses a small quantity of cocaine for his own use, and that he in fact consumes it entirely himself. But assume further that, at the time he acquired the drug, he told his wife not to worry about the expense because, if they had an emergency need for money, he could always resell it. If conditional intent suffices, this person, who has never sold drugs and has never "intended" to sell drugs in any normal sense, has been guilty of possession with intent to distribute. Or consider 18 U. S. C. § 2390, which makes it a crime to enlist within the United States "with intent to serve in armed hostility against the United States." Suppose a Canadian enlists in the Canadian army in the United States, intending, of course, to fight all of Canada's wars, including (though he neither expects nor hopes for it) a war against the United States. He would be criminally liable. These examples make it clear, I think, that the doctrine of conditional intent cannot reasonably be applied across-the-board to the criminal code. I am unaware that any equivalent absurdities result from reading "intent" to mean what it says— a conclusion strongly supported by the fact that the Government has cited only a single case involving another federal
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