Carter v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled that federal bank theft is not automatically a lesser version of federal bank robbery, because bank theft requires proving three things robbery does not: intent to steal, carrying the property away, and (for the more serious grade) that the property was worth more than $1,000.
Because a defendant can only ask a jury to consider a lesser crime if every element of that lesser crime is also required for the greater crime, a man convicted of robbing a New Jersey bank could not get a jury instruction on the theft charge, even though the two crimes are closely related.
How it got here: A jury convicted Carter of bank robbery after the trial judge refused a lesser-offense instruction; the Third Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Floyd Carter robbed a New Jersey bank at speed, vaulting the teller counter and taking nearly $16,000 after frightening a customer. He was indicted only for bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), which requires force or intimidation. At trial he argued he hadn't used force or intimidation and asked the judge to let the jury instead consider convicting him of the lesser crime of bank theft under § 2113(b), which carries lighter penalties.
The question before the Court
If someone is charged with armed bank robbery, can a judge tell the jury it may instead convict on the lesser crime of bank theft?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that bank theft under § 2113(b) is not a lesser included offense of bank robbery under § 2113(a), so a defendant charged with robbery cannot demand a jury instruction on theft instead. Comparing the actual text of the two provisions, the Court found theft requires proof of things robbery doesn't: a specific intent to steal, actually carrying the property away, and (for the higher grade) that the stolen property was worth more than $1,000.
Because Congress wrote these as separate elements rather than using established common-law terms like 'robbery' or 'larceny' in the statute's operative text, the Court declined to read in unwritten common-law requirements. Since theft's elements aren't simply a subset of robbery's elements, Carter could not force the trial judge to give the jury the option of convicting him of the lesser theft charge.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Defendants charged with federal bank robbery can no longer count on juries being offered the theft charge as a fallback option, which narrows the room for compromise verdicts and increases the stakes of an all-or-nothing robbery trial. Prosecutors also gain more predictability, since they know in advance which instructions a court can and cannot give.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, not a remand for further proceedings on the underlying question. The Third Circuit's judgment upholding Carter's robbery conviction stands, and Carter's conviction remains in place. The ruling resolves a split among the federal appeals courts, so going forward defendants charged with federal bank robbery cannot obtain a lesser included offense instruction on federal bank theft in any circuit.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether prosecutors could still separately charge and convict someone of bank theft after a robbery acquittal on the same facts, an issue the dissent raised regarding double jeopardy. It also did not address whether the evidence at trial would have supported a jury finding Carter guilty only of the lesser offense, since it resolved the case purely on the elements test.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
“The Court's woodenly literal construction gives rise to practical anomalies”Ginsburg's core objection that the majority's textual approach ignores the common-law relationship between robbery and larceny.
Justice Ginsburg argued that Congress, in codifying 'bank robbery and incidental crimes,' meant to preserve the common-law relationship in which robbery is aggravated larceny, so larceny (theft) is necessarily a lesser included offense of robbery. She contended robbery still implicitly requires intent to steal and carrying away, based on statutory history and the statute's structure, and would have allowed Carter's requested instruction on the higher grade of theft since only the value element genuinely distinguishes it, and a defendant can waive his own notice rights by requesting it.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the 'elements test' from Schmuck v. United States, under which a defendant may get an instruction on a lesser crime only if every element of that lesser crime is also an element of the crime actually charged — a strict side-by-side comparison of the statutes' text.
- Comparing the text of the robbery provision, § 2113(a), with the theft provision, § 2113(b), the Court found that theft requires three things robbery does not: a specific intent to steal or purloin, actually carrying the property away (not just taking it), and, for the more serious grade of theft, proof the property was worth more than $1,000.
- The Court rejected the argument that a specific intent-to-steal requirement should be read into the robbery statute as an unstated background rule, reasoning that only a general awareness of using force to take property is needed to separate guilty conduct from truly innocent conduct here.
- The Court also declined to import the common-law rules for robbery and larceny into the statute, explaining that judges only borrow common-law meaning when Congress uses an actual common-law legal term in the statute's text, and neither 'robbery' nor 'larceny' appears in the operative text of either subsection.
- Because theft under § 2113(b) requires proof of extra elements that robbery under § 2113(a) does not, theft is not a lesser included offense of robbery, so a defendant charged with robbery cannot demand a jury instruction letting jurors convict him of theft instead.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Schmuck v. United States (489 U.S. 705)
The Court applied and relied on Schmuck's elements test as the governing standard for lesser included offense instructions.