Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
stands our approach to statutory interpretation. In analyzing a statute, we begin by examining the text, see, e. g., Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469, 475 (1992), not by "psychoanalyzing those who enacted it," Bank One Chicago, N. A. v. Midwest Bank & Trust Co., 516 U. S. 264, 279 (1996) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). While "feloniously" no doubt would be sufficient to convey a specific intent requirement akin to the one spelled out in subsection (b), the word simply does not appear in subsection (a).
Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, post, at 283-284, this reading is not a fanciful one. The absence of a specific intent requirement from subsection (a), for example, permits the statute to reach cases like Lewis, see supra, at 268, where an ex-convict robs a bank because he wants to be apprehended and returned to prison. (The Government represents that indictments on this same fact pattern (which invariably plead out and hence do not result in reported decisions) are brought "as often as every year," Brief for United States 22, n. 13.) It can hardly be said, therefore, that it would have been absurd to delete "feloniously" in order to reach such defendants. And once we have made that determination, our inquiry into legislative motivation is at an end. Cf. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U. S., at 510-511.10
ever, to acknowledge that the House Report does not give that reason for the deletion of "feloniously" from § 2113, even though it explicitly does so in connection with the simultaneous elimination of similar language from other sections. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 304, supra, at A67 ("References to offenses as felonies or misdemeanors were omitted in view of definitive section 1 of this title") (explaining revisions to 18 U. S. C. § 751). As is often the case, the legislative history, even if it is relevant, supports conflicting inferences and provides scant illumination.
10 Carter claims further support in Prince v. United States, 352 U. S. 322 (1957), for his view that § 2113(a) implicitly requires a specific "intent to steal." But Prince did not discuss the elements of that subsection, let alone compare them to the elements of subsection (b).
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