530 U.S. 255 (2000)

CARTER
v.
UNITED STATES

No. 99-5716.

United States Supreme Court.

Argued April 19, 2000. Decided June 12, 2000. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

*257 *257 *258 Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 275.

Donald J. McCauley argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Richard Coughlin, Jeffrey T. Green, and Joseph S. Miller.

David C. Frederick argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and Thomas E. Booth.^[*]

Justice Thomas, delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Schmuck v. United States, 489 U. S. 705 (1989), we held that a defendant who requests a jury instruction on a lesser offense under Rule 31(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure must demonstrate that "the elements of the lesser offense are a subset of the elements of the charged offense." Id., at 716. This case requires us to apply this elements test to the offenses described by 18 U. S. C. §§ 2113(a) and (b) *259 (1994 ed. and Supp. IV). The former punishes "[w]hoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes . . . from the person or presence of another . . . any . . . thing of value belonging to, or in the . . . possession of, any bank . . . ." The latter, which entails less severe penalties, punishes, inter alia, "[w]hoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any . . . thing of value exceeding $1,000 belonging to, or in the . . . possession of, any bank . . . ." We hold that § 2113(b) requires an element not required by § 2113(a)—three in fact—and therefore is not a lesser included offense of § 2113(a). Petitioner is accordingly prohibited as a matter of law from obtaining a lesser included offense instruction on the offense described by § 2113(b).

I

On September 9, 1997, petitioner Floyd J. Carter donned a ski mask and entered the Collective Federal Savings Bank in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. Carter confronted a customer who was exiting the bank and pushed her back inside. She screamed, startling others in the bank. Undeterred, Carter ran into the bank and leaped over the customer service counter and through one of the teller windows. One of the tellers rushed into the manager's office. Meanwhile, Carter opened several teller drawers and emptied the money into a bag. After having removed almost $16,000 in currency, Carter jumped back over the counter and fled from the scene. Later that day, the police apprehended him.

A grand jury indicted Carter, charging him with violating § 2113(a). While not contesting the basic facts of the episode, Carter pleaded not guilty on the theory that he had not taken the bank's money "by force and violence, or by intimidation," as § 2113(a) requires. Before trial, Carter moved that the court instruct the jury on the offense described by § 2113(b) as a lesser included offense of the offense described by § 2113(a). The District Court, relying *260 on United States v. Mosley, 126 F. 3d 200 (CA3 1997),^[1] denied the motion in a preliminary ruling. At the close of the Government's case, the District Court denied Carter's motion for a judgment of acquittal and indicated that the preliminary ruling denying the lesser included offense instruction would stand. The jury, instructed on § 2113(a) alone, returned a guilty verdict, and the District Court entered judgment pursuant to that verdict.

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion, relying on its earlier decision in Mosley. Judgment order reported at 185 F. 3d 863 (1999). While the Ninth Circuit agrees with the Third that a lesser offense instruction is precluded in this context, see United States v. Gregory, 891 F. 2d 732, 734 (CA9 1989), other Circuits have held to the contrary, see United States v. Walker, 75 F. 3d 178, 180 (CA4 1996); United States v. Brittain, 41 F. 3d 1409, 1410 (CA10 1994). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 528 U. S. 1060 (1999), and now affirm.

II

In Schmuck, supra, we were called upon to interpret Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(c)'s provision that "[t]he defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged." We held that this provision requires application of an elements test, under which "one offense is not `necessarily included' in another unless the elements of the lesser offense are a subset of the elements of the charged offense." 489 U. S., at 716.^[2] The *261 elements test requires "a textual comparison of criminal statutes," an approach that, we explained, lends itself to "certain and predictable" outcomes. Id., at 720.^[3]

Applying the test, we held that the offense of tampering with an odometer, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1984 and 1990c(a) (1982 ed.), is not a lesser included offense of mail fraud, 18 U. S. C. § 1341. We explained that mail fraud requires two elements—(1) having devised or intending to devise a scheme to defraud (or to perform specified fraudulent acts), and (2) use of the mail for the purpose of executing, or attempting to execute, the scheme (or specified fraudulent acts). The lesser offense of odometer tampering, however, requires the element of knowingly and willfully causing an odometer to be altered, an element that is absent from the offense of mail fraud. Accordingly, the elements of odometer tampering are not a subset of the elements of mail fraud, and a defendant charged with the latter is not entitled to an instruction on the former under Rule 31(c). Schmuck, supra, at 721-722.

Turning to the instant case, the Government contends that three elements required by § 2113(b)'s first paragraph are not required by § 2113(a): (1) specific intent to steal; (2) asportation; and (3) valuation exceeding $1,000. The statute provides:

"§ 2113. Bank robbery and incidental crimes

"(a) Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another, or obtains or attempts to obtain by extortion any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, *262 management, or possession of, any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association . . .

. . . . .

"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

"(b) Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or any other thing of value exceeding $1,000 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; or

"Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or any other thing of value not exceeding $1,000 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

A "textual comparison" of the elements of these offenses suggests that the Government is correct. First, whereas subsection (b) requires that the defendant act "with intent to steal or purloin," subsection (a) contains no similar requirement. Second, whereas subsection (b) requires that the defendant "tak[e] and carr[y] away" the property, subsection (a) only requires that the defendant "tak[e]" the property. Third, whereas the first paragraph of subsection (b) requires that the property have a "value exceeding $1,000," subsection (a) contains no valuation requirement. These extra clauses in subsection (b) "cannot be regarded as mere surplusage; [they] mea[n] something." Potter v. United States, 155 U. S. 438, 446 (1894).

Carter urges that the foregoing application of Schmuck `s elements test is too rigid and submits that ordinary principles of statutory interpretation are relevant to the Schmuck inquiry. We do not dispute the latter proposition. The *263 Schmuck test, after all, requires an exercise in statutory interpretation before the comparison of elements may be made, and it is only sensible that normal principles of statutory construction apply. We disagree, however, with petitioner's conclusion that such principles counsel a departure in this case from what is indicated by a straightforward reading of the text.

III

We begin with the arguments pertinent to the general relationship between §§ 2113(a) and (b). Carter first contends that the structure of § 2113 supports the view that subsection (b) is a lesser included offense of subsection (a). He points to subsection (c) of § 2113, which imposes criminal liability on a person who knowingly "receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of, any property or money or other thing of value which has been taken or stolen from a bank . . . in violation of subsection (b). " (Emphasis added.) It would be anomalous, posits Carter, for subsection (c) to apply—as its text plainly provides—only to the fence who receives property from a violator of subsection (b) but not to the fence who receives property from a violator of subsection (a). The anomaly disappears, he concludes, only if subsection (b) is always violated when subsection (a) is violated—i. e., only if subsection (b) is a lesser included offense of subsection (a).

But Carter's anomaly—even if it truly exists—is only an anomaly. Petitioner does not claim, and we tend to doubt, that it rises to the level of absurdity. Cf. Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U. S. 504, 509-511 (1989); id., at 527 (Scalia, J.,concurring in judgment). For example, it may be that violators of subsection (a) generally act alone, while violators of subsection (b) are commonly assisted by fences. In such a state of affairs, a sensible Congress may have thought it necessary to punish only the fences of property taken in violation of subsection (b). Or Congress may have thought that a defendant who violates subsection (a) *264 usually—if not inevitably—also violates subsection (b), so that the fence may be punished by reference to that latter violation. In any event, nothing in subsection (c) purports to redefine the elements required by the text of subsections (a) and (b).

Carter's second argument is more substantial. He submits that, insofar as subsections (a) and (b) are similar to the common-law crimes of robbery and larceny, we must assume that subsections (a) and (b) require the same elements as their common-law predecessors, at least absent Congress' affirmative indication (whether in text or legislative history) of an intent to displace the common-law scheme. While we (and the Government) agree that the statutory crimes at issue here bear a close resemblance to the common-law crimes of robbery and larceny, see Brief for United States 29 (citing 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *229, *232); accord, post, at 278-279, that observation is beside the point. The canon on imputing common-law meaning applies only when Congress makes use of a statutory term with established meaning at common law, and Carter does not point to any such term in the text of the statute.

This limited scope of the canon on imputing common-law meaning has long been understood. In Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246 (1952), for example, we articulated the canon in this way:

"[W]here Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed. In such case, absence of contrary direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a departure from them." Id., at 263 (emphasis added).

*265 In other words, a "cluster of ideas" from the common law should be imported into statutory text only when Congress employs a common-law term, and not when, as here, Congress simply describes an offense analogous to a commonlaw crime without using common-law terms.

We made this clear in United States v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482 (1997). At issue was whether 18 U. S. C. § 1014—which punishes a person who "knowingly makes any false statement or report . . . for the purpose of influencing in any way the action" of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insured bank "upon any application, advance, . . . commitment, or loan"—requires proof of the materiality of the "false statement." The defendants contended that since materiality was a required element of "false statement"-type offenses at common law, it must also be required by § 1014. Although Justice Stevens in dissent thought the argument to be meritorious, we rejected it:

"[F]undamentally, we disagree with our colleague's apparent view that any term that is an element of a common-law crime carries with it every other aspect of that common-law crime when the term is used in a statute. Justice Stevens seems to assume that because `false statement' is an element of perjury, and perjury criminalizes only material statements, a statute criminalizing `false statements' covers only material statements. By a parity of reasoning, because common-law perjury involved statements under oath, a statute criminalizing a false statement would reach only statements under oath. It is impossible to believe that Congress intended to impose such restrictions sub silentio, however, and so our rule on imputing common-law mean- ing to statutory terms does not sweep so broadly. " 519 U. S., at 492, n. 10 (emphasis added; citation omitted).^[4]

*266 Similarly, in United States v. Turley, 352 U. S. 407 (1957), we declined to look to the analogous common-law crime because the statutory term at issue—"stolen"—had no meaning at common law. See id., at 411-412 ("[W]hile `stolen' is constantly identified with larceny, the term was never at common law equated or exclusively dedicated to larceny" (internal quotation marks omitted)).

By contrast, we have not hesitated to turn to the common law for guidance when the relevant statutory text does contain a term with an established meaning at common law. In Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1 (1999), for example, we addressed whether materiality is required by federal statutes punishing a "scheme or artifice to defraud." Id., at 20, and 20-21, nn. 3-4 (citing 18 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1344). Unlike the statute in Wells, which contained no commonlaw term, these statutes did include a common-law term— "defraud." 527 U. S., at 22. Because common-law fraud required proof of materiality, we applied the canon to hold that these federal statutes implicitly contain a materiality requirement as well. Id., at 23. Similarly, in Evans v. United States, 504 U. S. 255, 261-264 (1992), we observed that "extortion" in 18 U. S. C. § 1951 was a common-law term, and proceeded to interpret this term by reference to its meaning at common law.

Here, it is undisputed that "robbery" and "larceny" are terms with established meanings at common law. But neither *267 term appears in the text of § 2113(a) or § 2113(b).^[5] While the term "robbery" does appear in § 2113's title, the title of a statute "`[is]of use only when [it] shed[s] light on some ambiguous word or phrase' " in the statute itself. Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206, 212 (1998) (quoting Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1947) (modifications in original)). And Carter does not claim that this title illuminates any such ambiguous language. Accordingly, the canon on imputing common-law meaning has no bearing on this case.

IV

We turn now to Carter's more specific arguments concerning the "extra" elements of § 2113(b). While conceding the absence of three of § 2113(b)'s requirements from the text of § 2113(a)—(1) "intent to steal or purloin"; (2) "takes and carries away, " i. e., asportation; and (3) "value exceeding $1,000" (first paragraph)—Carter claims that the first two should be deemed implicit in § 2113(a), and that the third is not an element at all.

A

As to "intent to steal or purloin," it will be recalled that the text of subsection (b) requires a specific "intent to steal or purloin," whereas subsection (a) contains no explicit mens rea requirement of any kind. Carter nevertheless argues that such a specific intent requirement must be deemed implicitly present in § 2113(a) by virtue of "our cases interpreting criminal statutes to include broadly applicable scienter requirements, even where the statute by its terms *268 does not contain them." United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 70 (1994).^[6] Properly applied to § 2113, however, the presumption in favor of scienter demands only that we read subsection (a) as requiring proof of general intent —that is, that the defendant possessed knowledge with respect to the actus reus of the crime (here, the taking of property of another by force and violence or intimidation).

Before explaining why this is so under our cases, an example, United States v. Lewis, 628 F. 2d 1276, 1279 (CA10 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 924 (1981), will help to make the distinction between "general" and "specific" intent less esoteric. In Lewis, a person entered a bank and took money from a teller at gunpoint, but deliberately failed to make a quick getaway from the bank in the hope of being arrested so that he would be returned to prison and treated for alcoholism. Though this defendant knowingly engaged in the acts of using force and taking money (satisfying "general intent"), he did not intend permanently to deprive the bank of its possession of the money (failing to satisfy "specific intent").^[7] See generally 1 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal *269 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 satisfied, *270 for a forceful taking—even by a defendant who takes under a good-faith claim of right—falls outside the realm of the "otherwise innocent." Thus, the presumption in favor of scienter does not justify reading a specific intent requirement—"intent to steal or purloin"—into § 2113(a).^[8]

Independent of his reliance upon the presumption in favor of scienter, Carter argues that the legislative history of § 2113 supports the notion that an "intent to steal" requirement should be read into § 2113(a). Carter points out that, in 1934, Congress enacted what is now § 2113(a), but with the adverb "feloniously" (which all agree is equivalent to "intent to steal") modifying the verb "takes." Act of May 18, 1934, ch. 304, § 2(a), 48 Stat. 783. In 1937, Congress added what is now § 2113(b). Act of Aug. 24, 1937, ch. 747, 50 Stat. 749. Finally, in 1948, Congress made two changes to § 2113, deleting "feloniously" from what is now § 2113(a) and dividing the "robbery" and "larceny" offenses into their own separate subsections. 62 Stat. 796.

Carter concludes that the 1948 deletion of "feloniously" was merely a stylistic change, and that Congress had no intention, in deleting that word, to drop the requirement that the defendant "feloniously" take the property—that is, with intent to steal.^[9] Such reasoning, however, misunderstands *271 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]

*272 B

Turning to the second element in dispute, it will be recalled that, whereas subsection (b) requires that the defendant "tak[e] and carr[y] away the property," subsection (a) requires only that the defendant "tak[e]" the property. Carter contends that the "takes" in subsection (a) is equivalent to "takes and carries away" in subsection (b). While Carter seems to acknowledge that the argument is at war with the text of the statute, he urges that text should not be dispositive here because nothing in the evolution of § 2113(a) suggests that Congress sought to discard the asportation requirement from that subsection.

But, again, our inquiry focuses on an analysis of the textual product of Congress' efforts, not on speculation as to the internal thought processes of its Members. Congress is certainly free to outlaw bank theft that does not involve asportation, and it hardly would have been absurd for Congress to do so, since the taking-without-asportation scenario is no imagined hypothetical. See, e. g., State v. Boyle, 970 S. W. 2d 835, 836, 838-839 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998) (construing state statutory codification of common-law robbery to apply to defendant who, after taking money by threat of force, dropped the money on the spot). Indeed, a leading treatise applauds the deletion of the asportation requirement from the elements of robbery. See 2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 8.11, at 439. No doubt the common law's decision to require asportation also has its virtues. But Congress adopted a different view in § 2113(a), and it is not for us to question that choice.

C

There remains the requirement in § 2113(b)'s first paragraph that the property taken have a "value exceeding $1,000"—a requirement notably absent from § 2113(a). Carter, shifting gears from his previous arguments, concedes the textual point but claims that the valuation requirement *273 does not affect the Schmuck elements analysis because it is a sentencing factor, not an element. We disagree. The structure of subsection (b) strongly suggests that its two paragraphs—the first of which requires that the property taken have "value exceeding $1,000," the second of which refers to property of "value not exceeding $1,000"—describe distinct offenses. Each begins with the word "[w]hoever," proceeds to describe identically (apart from the differing valuation requirements) the elements of the offense, and concludes by stating the prescribed punishment. That these provisions "stand on their own grammatical feet" strongly suggests that Congress intended the valuation requirement to be an element of each paragraph's offense, rather than a sentencing factor of some base § 2113(b) offense. Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227, 234 (1999). Even aside from the statute's structure, the "steeply higher penalties"—an enhancement from a 1-year to a 10-year maximum penalty on proof of valuation exceeding $1,000—leads us to conclude that the valuation requirement is an element of the first paragraph of subsection (b). See Castillo v. United States, ante, at 127; Jones, 526 U. S., at 233. Finally, the constitutional questions that would be raised by interpreting the valuation requirement to be a sentencing factor persuade us to adopt the view that the valuation requirement is an element. See id., at 239-252.

The dissent agrees that the valuation requirement of subsection (b)'s first paragraph is an element, but nonetheless would hold that subsection (b) is a lesser included offense of subsection (a). Post, at 287-289. The dissent reasons that the "value not exceeding $1,000" component of § 2113(b)'s second paragraph is not an element of the offense described in that paragraph. Hence, the matter of value does not prevent § 2113(b)'s second paragraph from being a lesser included offense of § 2113(a). And if a defendant wishes to receive an instruction on the first paragraph of § 2113(b)—which entails more severe penalties than the second *274 paragraph, but is a more realistic option from the jury's standpoint in a case such as this one where the value of the property clearly exceeds $1,000—the dissent sees no reason to bar him from making that election, even though the "value exceeding $1,000" element of § 2113(b)'s first paragraph is clearly absent from § 2113(a).

This novel maneuver creates a problem, however. Since subsection (a) contains no valuation requirement, a defendant indicted for violating that subsection who requests an instruction under subsection (b)'s first paragraph would effectively "waive . . . his [Fifth Amendment] right to notice by indictment of the `value exceeding $1,000' element." Post, at 289. But this same course would not be available to the prosecutor who seeks the insurance policy of a lesser included offense instruction under that same paragraph after determining that his case may have fallen short of proving the elements of subsection (a). For, whatever authority defense counsel may possess to waive a defendant's constitutional rights, see generally New York v. Hill, 528 U. S. 110 (2000), a prosecutor has no such power. Thus, the prosecutor would be disabled from obtaining a lesser included offense instruction under Rule 31(c), a result plainly contrary to Schmuck, in which we explicitly rejected an interpretive approach to the Rule that would have permitted "the defendant, by in effect waiving his right to notice, . . . [to] obtain a lesser [included] offense instruction in circumstances where the constitutional restraint of notice to the defendant would prevent the prosecutor from seeking an identical instruction," 489 U. S., at 718.

* * *

We hold that § 2113(b) is not a lesser included offense of § 2113(a), and therefore that petitioner is not entitled to a jury instruction on § 2113(b). The judgment of the Third Circuit is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

*275 Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

At common law, robbery meant larceny plus force, violence, or putting in fear. Because robbery was an aggravated form of larceny at common law, larceny was a lesser included offense of robbery. Congress, I conclude, did not depart from that traditional understanding when it rendered "Bank robbery and incidental crimes" federal offenses. Accordingly, I would hold that petitioner Carter is not prohibited as a matter of law from obtaining an instruction on bank larceny as a lesser included offense. The Court holds that Congress, in 18 U. S. C. § 2113, has dislodged bank robbery and bank larceny from their common-law mooring. I dissent from that determination.

I

The Court presents three reasons in support of its conclusion that a lesser included offense instruction was properly withheld in this case under the elements-based test of Schmuck v. United States, 489 U. S. 705 (1989). First, the Court holds that bank larceny contains an "intent to steal" requirement that bank robbery lacks. Ante, at 267-271. Second, the Court concludes that larceny contains a requirement of carrying away, or "asportation," while robbery does not. Ante, at 272. And third, the Court states that the "value exceeding $1,000" requirement in the first paragraph of the larceny statute is an element for which no equivalent exists in the robbery statute. Ante, at 272-274. The Court's first and second points, I conclude, are mistaken. As for the third, I agree with the Court that the "value exceeding $1,000" requirement is an element essential to sustain a conviction for the higher degree of bank larceny. I would hold, however, that Carter was not disqualified on that account from obtaining the lesser included offense instruction he sought.

*276 I note at the outset that the structure of § 2113 points strongly toward the conclusion that bank larceny is a lesser included offense of bank robbery. Section 2113(c) imposes criminal liability on any person who knowingly "receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of, any property or money or other thing of value which has been taken or stolen from a bank . . . in violation of subsection (b)." If bank larceny, covered in § 2113(b), contains an intent or asportation element not included in bank robbery, covered in § 2113(a), then § 2113(c) creates an anomaly. As the Court concedes, ante, at 263-264, under today's decision the fence who gets his loot from a bank larcenist will necessarily receive property "stolen . . . in violation of subsection (b)," but the one who gets his loot from a bank robber will not. Once it is recognized that bank larceny is a lesser included offense of bank robbery, however, the anomaly vanishes. Because anyone who violates § 2113(a) necessarily commits the lesser included offense described in § 2113(b), a person who knowingly receives stolen property from a bank robber is just as guilty under § 2113(c) as one who knowingly receives stolen property from a bank larcenist.^[1]

I emphasize as well that the title of § 2113 is "Bank robbery and incidental crimes." This Court has repeatedly recognized that "`the title of a statute and the heading of a section' are `tools available for the resolution of a doubt' *277 about the meaning of a statute." Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 234 (1998) (quoting Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1947)).^[2] Robbery, all agree, was an offense at common law, and this Court has consistently instructed that courts should ordinarily read federal criminal laws in accordance with their common-law origins, if Congress has not directed otherwise. See Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 21 (1999) ("[W]here Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms." (internal quotation marks and modifications omitted)); Evans v. United States, 504 U. S. 255, 259 (1992) ("It is a familiar `maxim that a statutory term is generally presumed to have its common-law meaning.' ") (quoting Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 592 (1990)); United States v. Turley, 352 U. S. 407, 411 (1957) ("We recognize that where a federal criminal statute uses a common-law term of established meaning without otherwise defining it, the general practice is to give that term its common-law meaning."). As we explained in Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246 (1952):

"[W]here Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed. In such case, absence of contrary *278 direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a departure from them." Id., at 263.

In interpreting § 2113, then, I am guided by the commonlaw understanding of "robbery and incidental crimes." At common law, as the Government concedes, robbery was an aggravated form of larceny. Specifically, the common law defined larceny as "the felonious taking, and carrying away, of the personal goods of another." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 230 (1769) (Blackstone) (internal quotation marks omitted). Robbery, in turn, was larceny effected by taking property from the person or presence of another by means of force or putting in fear. Brief for United States 29-30 (citing 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 8.11, pp. 437-438 (1986) (LaFave & Scott)). Larceny was therefore a lesser included offense of robbery at common law. See 4 Blackstone 241 (robbery is "[o]pen and violent larciny from the person" (emphasis deleted)); 2 E. East, Pleas of the Crown § 124, p. 707 (1803) (robbery is a species of "aggravated larceny"); 2 W. Russell & C. Greaves, Crimes and Misdemeanors *101 ("robbery is an aggravated species of larceny").

Closer inspection of the common-law elements of both crimes confirms the relationship. The elements of commonlaw larceny were also elements of robbery. First and most essentially, robbery, like larceny, entailed an intentional taking. See 4 Blackstone 241 (robbery is "the felonious and forcible taking, from the person of another, of goods or money to any value, by putting him in fear"); 2 East, supra, at 707 (robbery is the "felonious taking of money or goods, to any value, from the person of another, or in his presence, against his will, by violence or putting him in fear"). Second, as the above quotations indicate, the taking in a robbery had to be "felonious," a common-law term of art signifying an intent to steal. See 4 Blackstone 232 ("This taking, and carrying away, must also be felonious; that is, done animo