Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
those then in existence."). As the Third Circuit has recognized, "it seems that the deletion of 'feloniously' was a result of Congress' effort to delete references to felonies and misdemeanors from the code, inasmuch as both terms were defined in 18 U. S. C. § 1," a statute that has since been repealed.5 United States v. Mosley, 126 F. 3d 200, 205 (CA3 1997). See also United States v. Richardson, 687 F. 2d 952, 957 (CA7 1982) (giving the same account of the 1948 revision). I would not attribute to Congress a design to create a robbery offense stripped of the requirement of larcenous intent in the absence of any affirmative indication of such a design.6
Our decision in Prince supports this conclusion. The petitioner in that case had entered a bank, displayed a revolver, and robbed the bank. He was convicted of robbery and of entering the bank with the intent to commit a felony, both crimes prohibited by § 2113(a). The trial judge sentenced him, consecutively, to 20 years for the robbery and 15 years for the entering-with-intent crime. 352 U. S., at 324. This Court reversed the sentencing decision. The entering-with-intent crime, we held, merges with the robbery crime once the latter crime is consummated. Thus, we explained, the punishment could not exceed 20 years, the sentence authorized for a consummated robbery. Id., at 329. In reaching our decision in Prince, we noted that, when the federal bank robbery proscription was enlarged in 1937 to add the entering-with-intent and larceny provisions, "[i]t was manifestly the purpose of Congress to establish lesser offenses."
5 The various classes of federal felonies and misdemeanors are now defined at 18 U. S. C. § 3559.
6 Congress could have provided such an affirmative indication in any number of ways. The simplest would have been to say so in the statute, e. g.: "It shall not be a defense that the accused person lacked an intent to steal." Cf. 18 U. S. C. § 645 (criminalizing embezzlement by judicial officers, and providing that "[i]t shall not be a defense that the accused person had any interest in [the embezzled] moneys or fund").
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