Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255, 13 (2000)

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Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)

Opinion of the Court

ther term appears in the text of § 2113(a) or § 2113(b).5 While the term "robbery" does appear in § 2113's title, the title of a statute " '[is] of use only when [it] shed[s] light on some ambiguous word or phrase' " in the statute itself. Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206, 212 (1998) (quoting Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1947) (modifications in original)). And Carter does not claim that this title illuminates any such ambiguous language. Accordingly, the canon on imputing common-law meaning has no bearing on this case.

IV

We turn now to Carter's more specific arguments concerning the "extra" elements of § 2113(b). While conceding the absence of three of § 2113(b)'s requirements from the text of § 2113(a)—(1) "intent to steal or purloin"; (2) "takes and carries away," i. e., asportation; and (3) "value exceeding $1,000" (first paragraph)—Carter claims that the first two should be deemed implicit in § 2113(a), and that the third is not an element at all.

A

As to "intent to steal or purloin," it will be recalled that the text of subsection (b) requires a specific "intent to steal or purloin," whereas subsection (a) contains no explicit mens rea requirement of any kind. Carter nevertheless argues that such a specific intent requirement must be deemed implicitly present in § 2113(a) by virtue of "our cases interpreting criminal statutes to include broadly applicable scienter requirements, even where the statute by its terms

5 Congress could have simply punished "robbery" or "larceny" as some States have done (and as Congress itself has done elsewhere, see, e. g., 18 U. S. C. §§ 2112, 2114, 2115), thereby leaving the definition of these terms to the common law, but Congress instead followed the more prevalent legislative practice of spelling out elements of these crimes. See 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 8.11, p. 438, n. 6 (1986).

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