266
Opinion of the Court
Similarly, in United States v. Turley, 352 U. S. 407 (1957), we declined to look to the analogous common-law crime because the statutory term at issue—"stolen"—had no meaning at common law. See id., at 411-412 ("[W]hile 'stolen' is constantly identified with larceny, the term was never at common law equated or exclusively dedicated to larceny" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
By contrast, we have not hesitated to turn to the common law for guidance when the relevant statutory text does contain a term with an established meaning at common law. In Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1 (1999), for example, we addressed whether materiality is required by federal statutes punishing a "scheme or artifice to defraud." Id., at 20, and 20-21, nn. 3-4 (citing 18 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1344). Unlike the statute in Wells, which contained no common-law term, these statutes did include a common-law term— "defraud." 527 U. S., at 22. Because common-law fraud required proof of materiality, we applied the canon to hold that these federal statutes implicitly contain a materiality requirement as well. Id., at 23. Similarly, in Evans v. United States, 504 U. S. 255, 261-264 (1992), we observed that "extortion" in 18 U. S. C. § 1951 was a common-law term, and proceeded to interpret this term by reference to its meaning at common law.
Here, it is undisputed that "robbery" and "larceny" are terms with established meanings at common law. But nei-which revealed Congress' apparent care in retaining a materiality requirement in certain sections while omitting it in others, such as the one before us in Wells. According to the dissent, a similar statutory evolution is not present here. See post, at 286. But, even assuming the dissent is correct in this latter regard, the holding in Wells simply cannot be deemed to rest on our discussion of the statute's evolution. Rather, we characterized that discussion as supporting a result we had already reached on textual grounds. See 519 U. S., at 492 ("Statutory history confirms the natural reading").
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