284
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
if Lewis was not arrested he would have kept the money and spent it." Id., at 1279.) But whatever its proper disposition, this sort of case is extremely rare—the Government represents that, nationwide, such indictments are brought no more than once per year. Brief for United States 22, n. 13. Moreover, unlike a John Dillinger who foils state enforcers by robbing banks in Chicago and lying low in South Bend, the thief who orchestrates his own capture at the hands of the local constable hardly poses the kind of problem that one would normally expect to trigger a federal statutory response. In sum, I resist the notion—apparently embraced by the Court, see ante, at 271—that Congress' purpose in deleting the word "feloniously" from § 2113(a) was to grant homesick ex-convicts like Lewis their wish to return to prison. Nor can I credit the suggestion that Congress' concern was to cover the Government's fictional terrorist, or the frustrated account holder who "withdraws" $100 by force or violence, believing the money to be rightfully his, or the thrill seeker who holds up a bank with the intent of driving around the block in a getaway car and then returning the loot, or any other defendant whose exploits are seldom encountered outside the pages of law school exams.
Indeed, there is no cause to suspect that the 1948 deletion of "feloniously" was intended to effect any substantive change at all. Nothing indicates that Congress removed that word in response to any assertion or perception of prosecutorial need. Nor is there any other reason to believe that it was Congress' design to alter the elements of the offense of robbery. Rather, the legislative history suggests that Congress intended only to make "changes in phraseology." H. R. Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., A135 (1947). See Prince v. United States, 352 U. S. 322, 326, n. 5 (1957) ("The legislative history indicates that no substantial change was made in this [1948] revision" of § 2113); Morissette, 342 U. S., at 269, n. 28 ("The 1948 Revision was not intended to create new crimes but to recodify
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