Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Law § 3.5, p. 315 (1986) (distinguishing general from specific intent).
The presumption in favor of scienter requires a court to read into a statute only that mens rea which is necessary to separate wrongful conduct from "otherwise innocent conduct." X-Citement Video, supra, at 72. In Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 (1994), for example, to avoid criminalizing the innocent activity of gun ownership, we interpreted a federal firearms statute to require proof that the defendant knew that the weapon he possessed had the characteristics bringing it within the scope of the statute. Id., at 611-612. See also, e. g., Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419, 426 (1985); Morissette, 342 U. S., at 270-271. By contrast, some situations may call for implying a specific intent requirement into statutory text. Suppose, for example, a statute identical to § 2113(b) but without the words "intent to steal or purloin." Such a statute would run the risk of punishing seemingly innocent conduct in the case of a defendant who peaceably takes money believing it to be his. Reading the statute to require that the defendant possess general intent with respect to the actus reus—i. e., that he know that he is physically taking the money—would fail to protect the innocent actor. The statute therefore would need to be read to require not only general intent, but also specific intent—i. e., that the defendant take the money with "intent to steal or purloin."
In this case, as in Staples, a general intent requirement suffices to separate wrongful from "otherwise innocent" conduct. Section 2113(a) certainly should not be interpreted to apply to the hypothetical person who engages in forceful taking of money while sleepwalking (innocent, if aberrant activity), but this result is accomplished simply by requiring, as Staples did, general intent—i. e., proof of knowledge with respect to the actus reus of the crime. And once this mental state and actus reus are shown, the concerns underlying the presumption in favor of scienter are fully satis-
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