Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
furandi [with intent to steal]: or, as the civil law expresses it, lucri causa [for the sake of gain]."); Black's Law Dictionary 555 (5th ed. 1979) ("Felonious" is "[a] technical word of law which means done with intent to commit crime"). And third, again like larceny, robbery contained an asportation requirement. See 2 LaFave & Scott § 8.11, at 439 ("Just as larceny requires that the thief both 'take' (secure dominion over) and 'carry away' (move slightly) the property in question, so too robbery under the traditional view requires both a taking and an asportation (in the sense of at least a slight movement) of the property." (footnotes omitted)). Unlike larceny, however, robbery included one further essential component: an element of force, violence, or intimidation. See 4 Blackstone 242 ("[P]utting in fear is the criterion that distinguishes robbery from other larcinies.").3
Precedent thus instructs us to presume that Congress has adhered to the altogether clear common-law understanding
3 English courts continue to recognize larceny as a lesser included offense of robbery. See, e. g., Regina v. Skivington, 51 Crim. App. 167, 170 (C. A. 1967) ("[L]arceny is an ingredient of robbery, and if the honest belief that a man has a claim of right is a defence to larceny, then it negatives one of the ingredients in the offense of robbery . . . ."). After the enactment of the Theft Act, 1968, which consolidated the crimes of larceny, embezzlement, and fraudulent conversion into the single crime of theft, see Director of Public Prosecutions v. Gomez, 96 Crim. App. 359, 377 (H. L. 1992) (Lord Lowry, dissenting), English courts reaffirmed that theft remains a lesser included offense of robbery, see Regina v. Guy, 93 Crim. App. 108, 111 (C. A. 1991) ("[Section 8(1) of the Theft Act, 1968] makes it clear that robbery is theft with an additional ingredient, namely the use of force, or putting or seeking to put any person in fear of being subjected to force. Therefore anyone guilty of robbery must, by statutory definition, also be guilty of theft.").
Leading commentators agree that larceny is a lesser included offense of robbery. See, e. g., 2 LaFave & Scott § 8.11, at 437 ("Robbery . . . may be thought of as aggravated larceny . . . ."); 3 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 515, p. 22 (2d ed. 1982) ("Robbery necessarily includes larceny . . . .").
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