NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES -------- No. 95-1228 -------- UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. JERRY E. WELLS AND KENNETH R. STEELE ___ ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT [February 26, 1997] JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court. The principal issue before us is whether materiality of falsehood is an element of the crime of knowingly making a false statement to a federally insured bank, 18 U. S. C. S1014. We hold that it is not. I In 1993, the Government charged respondents, Jerry Wells and Kenneth Steele, with violating and conspiring to violate the cited statute as officers and part- owners of Copytech Systems, Inc., a lessor of office copiers for a monthly fee covering not only use of the equipment but any service that might be required. To raise cash, Copytech sold its interest in the income stream from these contracts to banks. In Count I of the indictment, the Government charged respondents with conspiring to violate S1014 by concealing from several banks the true contractual terms. (Ftnote. 1) Respondents supposedly conspired to provide the (Ftnote. 1) banks with versions of lease contracts purporting to indicate that Copytech's customers were responsible for servicing the equipment when, in fact, secret side agreements ____________________ 1) Title 18 U. S. C. S371 makes it a crime to "conspire . . . to commit any 1) offense against the United States." 95-1228 - OPINION 2 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ placed that responsibility on Copytech at no further cost to the lessees. See App. 24-25; 63 F. 3d 745, 748 (CA8 1995). The Government alleged that respondents concealed the service obligations in order to avoid tying up needed cash in reserve accounts, which the banks might have required Copytech to maintain if they had known of the company's servicing obligations. Id., at 748. ____ In Count II, respondents were charged with violating S1014 by giving a bank forgeries of respondents' wives' signatures on personal guaranties designed to enable the bank to pursue the wives' assets if Copytech defaulted on any liability to the bank. See App. 21, 30-31; 63 F. 3d, at 748. (Ftnote. 2) Each count of the indictment charged respondents with (Ftnote. 2) submitting one or more statements that were both false and "material." App. 24, 25, 29, 30-31. At the end of the trial, the District Court instructed the jury, at the Government's behest, that withholding a "material fact" made a statement or representation false, id., at 41, 42, and defined a material fact as one "that ____ would be important to a reasonable person in deciding whether to engage or not to engage in a particular transaction," id., at 42. Although there was no ____ controversy over the law as stated in these instructions, the Government argued that materiality was for the judge to determine, while respondents said it was an issue for the jury. 63 F. 3d, at 749, nn. 3 and 4. Following Eighth Circuit precedent then prevailing, the District Court agreed with the Government and told the jury that "[t]he materiality of the statement . . . alleged to be false . . . is not a matter with which you are ____________________ 2) The Government also charged respondents with three other counts of 2) violating S1014. The District Court dismissed one count prior to trial and granted judgment of acquittal on the other two. 63 F. 3d, at 748; Brief for Respondents 2; Brief for United States 3, n. 1. 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 3 ____ concerned and should not be considered by you in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant[s]," App. 43. The jury convicted respondents on both counts, the court treated the statements as material, and respondents appealed. While the appeal was pending, we decided United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. _____________ _______ ___ (1995), in which the parties agreed that materiality was an element of 18 U. S. C. S1001, but disputed whether materiality was a question for the judge or jury, id., at ___ (slip op., at 3). Applying the rule that "[t]he Constitution ____ gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine . . . his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged," we held that the jury was entitled to pass on the materiality of Gaudin's statements, id., at ___ (slip ____ op., at 17). When the Court of Appeals in this case requested supplemental briefing on the applicability of Gaudin, respondents argued that under S1014 _______ materiality is an element on which they were entitled to a jury's determination; the Government argued, for the first time, that materiality is not an element under S1014, so that no harm had been done when the judge dealt with the issue. The Court of Appeals agreed with respondents, vacated their convictions and sentences, and remanded the case for a new trial. 63 F. 3d, at 749-751. We granted the Government's petition for certiorari to decide whether materiality of a false statement or report is an element under S1014. (Ftnote. 3) 517 U. S. ___ (1996). We (Ftnote. 3) ____________________ 3) Most, but not all, of the Federal Courts of Appeals have held that 3) materiality is an element. Compare United States v. Lopez, 71 F. 3d 954, 960 _____________ _____ (CA1 1995), cert. denied, 518 U. S. ___ (1996); United States v. Ryan, 828 F. 2d _____________ ____ 1010, 1013, n. 1 (CA3 1987); United States v. Bonnette, 663 F. 2d 495, 497 (CA4 _____________ ________ 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 951 (1982); United States v. Thompson, 811 F. 2d _____________ ________ 841, 844 (CA5 1987); United States v. Spears, 49 F. 3d 1136, 1141 (CA6 1995); _____________ ______ United States v. Staniforth, 971 F. 2d 1355, 1358 (CA7 1992); Theron v. United _____________ __________ ______ ______ States Marshal, 832 F. 2d 492, 496-497 (CA9 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1059 ______________ (1988); United States v. Haddock, 956 F. 2d 1534, 1549 (CA10), cert. denied, 506 _____________ _______ U. S. 828 (1992); United States v. Rapp, 871 F. 2d 957, 964 (CA11), cert. denied _____________ ____ sub nom. Bazarian v. United States, 493 U. S. 890 (1989) (all holding ________ ________ _____________ materiality to be an element of S1014) with United States v. Cleary, 565 F. 2d _____________ ______ 43, 46 (CA2 1977) (concluding that materiality is not an element), cert. denied sub nom. Passarelli v. United States, 435 U. S. 915 (1978). ________ __________ _____________ 95-1228 - OPINION 4 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ now vacate and remand. II We first address respondents' efforts to block us from reaching the question on which we granted certiorari. Given the Government's proposal for jury instructions to the effect that materiality is an element under S1014, respondents argue that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 30 and the doctrines of "law of the case" and "invited error" each bar the Government from taking the position here that materiality is not an element. None of these reasons stands in our way to reaching the merits. Rule 30 (applicable in this Court, see Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 1, 54(a)), provides that "[n]o party may assign as error any portion of the charge [given to the jury] . . . unless that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict." But the Government is not challenging the jury instruc- tion in an effort to impute error to the trial court; it is merely arguing that the instruction it proposed was harmless surplusage insofar as it was directed to the jury. As for the two doctrines, respondents are correct that several Courts of Appeals have ruled that when the Government accepts jury instructions treating a fact as an element of an offense, the "law of the case" doctrine precludes the Government from denying on appeal that the crime includes the element. See United States v. _____________ 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 5 ____ Killip, 819 F. 2d 1542, 1547-1548 (CA10), cert. denied sub nom. Krout v. United _______ ________ _____ ______ States, 484 U. S. 987 (1987); United States v. Tapio, 634 F. 2d 1092, 1094 (CA8 _______ _____________ ______ 1980); United States v. Spletzer, 535 F. 2d 950, 954 (CA5 _____________ _________ 1976). (Ftnote. 4) They are also correct that Courts of Appeals have stated (Ftnote. 4) more broadly under the "invited error" doctrine "`that a party may not complain on appeal of errors that he himself invited or provoked the [district] court . . . to commit.'" United States v. Sharpe, 996 F. 2d 125, 129 (CA6) (quoting ______________ _______ Harvis v. Roadway Express, Inc., 923 F. 2d 59, 60 (CA6 1991)), cert. denied, 510 ______ _______________________ U. S. 951 (1993). But however valuable these doctrines may be in controlling the party who wishes to change its position on the way from the district court to the court of appeals, they cannot dispositively oust this Court's traditional rule that we may address a question properly presented in a petition for certiorari if it was "pressed [in] or passed on" by the Court of Appeals, United ______ States v. Williams, 504 U. S. 36, 42 (1992) (internal quotation marks and em- ______ _________ phasis omitted). Accordingly, we have treated an inconsistency between a party's request for a jury instruction and its position before this Court as just one of several considerations bearing on whether to decide a question on which we granted certiorari. (Ftnote. 5) See Spring- (Ftnote. 5) _______ ____________________ 4) In this context, the "law of the case" doctrine is something of a 4) misnomer. It does not counsel a court to abide by its own prior decision in a given case, but goes rather to an appellate court's relationship to the court of trial. See 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure S4478 (1981). 5) Respondents offer variations on their "law of the case" and "invited 5) error" doctrines. In addition to arguing that the "law of the case" doctrine holds the Government to the position it took on the jury instructions, respondents contend this doctrine holds the Government to the position it adopted in the indictment. See Brief for Respondents 14-16 (citing United ______ States v. Norberg, 612 F. 2d 1 (CA1 1979)). For the reasons set forth in the ______ _______ text, this latter version of the doctrine does not stand in our way to reaching the question presented. Along with arguing that the Government "invited error" in the District Court by proposing its jury instructions, respondents claim that the Government invited error in the Court of Appeals by failing to argue that materiality is not an element of S1014 in its initial brief to that court. This claim is wrong. After the Court of Appeals requested supplemental briefing, the Government argued that materiality is not an element of S1014 and therefore hardly "invited" that court's contrary ruling. 95-1228 - OPINION 6 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ field v. Kibbe, 480 U. S. 257, 259-260 (1987). (Ftnote. 6) Here, it seems (Ftnote. 6) _____ ______ sensible to reach the question presented. The question of materiality as an element was raised before the Court of Appeals, ruled on there, clearly set forth in the certiorari petition, fully briefed, and argued. Nor would reaching the issue excuse inattention or reward cunning. For some time before respondents' trial in 1993, the Eighth Circuit had assumed that the Government was bound to prove a false statement's materi- ality as an element under S1014, see 63 F. 3d, at 750-751; United States v. _____________ Ribaste, 905 F. 2d 1140, 1143 (CA8 1990); United States v. McKnight, 771 F. 2d ________ _____________ _________ 388, 389 (CA8 1985), and had treated this issue as one for the judge, not the jury, see United States v. Ribaste, supra, at 1143. Since the Government was _____________ ________ ______ confident that it had evidence of materiality to satisfy the Circuit rule, it had no reason not to address the element when ____________________ 6) In Springfield v. Kibbe, 480 U. S., at 259, the Court dismissed the writ 6) ___________ ______ of certiorari on prudential grounds in part because the petitioner there, like the Government here, sought "to revers[e] a judgment because of [jury] instructions that petitioner accepted, and indeed itself requested." In contrast to the case at hand, however, the petitioner in Kibbe had not, in the _____ Court of Appeals, raised an issue critical to resolving the question presented in its petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court of Appeals had not consid- ered that related issue, and the petitioner had not explicitly raised that related issue in its certiorari petition, id., at 258-260. See also United ___ ______ States v. Williams, 504 U. S. 36, 43, n. 3 (1992) (discussing Kibbe). ______ _________ _____ 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 7 ____ it drafted the indictment and its proposed jury instructions. When Gaudin ______ rendered it reversible error to assign a required materiality ruling to the court, the Government suddenly had reason to contest the requirement to show materiality at all. Nothing the Government has done disqualifies it from the chance to make its position good in this Court. III We accordingly consider whether materiality of falsehood is an element under S1014, understanding the term in question to mean "ha[ving] a natural tendency to influence, or [being] capable of influencing, the decision of the decisionmaking body to which it was addressed," Kungys v. United States, 485 ______ ______________ U. S. 759, 770 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States _____________ v. Gaudin, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 2). (Ftnote. 7) We begin with the text. (Ftnote. 7) _______ ______ See Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730, 739 (1989). ___________________________________ _____ Section 1014 criminalizes "knowingly mak[ing] any false statement or report . . . for the purpose of influencing in any way the action" of an FDIC-insured bank "upon any application, advance, . . . commitment, or loan." 18 U. S. C. S1014. Nowhere does it further say that a material fact must be the subject of the false statement or so much as mention materiality. (Ftnote. 8) To the (Ftnote. 8) contrary, ____________________ 7) The Court of Appeals here also appears to have understood materiality to 7) have this meaning. See 63 F. 3d, at 750 (relying on United States v. Adler, 623 _____________ _____ F. 2d 1287, 1291 (CA8 1980), which defined "materiality" as having "a natural tendency to influence or [being] capable of influencing" an entity's decision (internal quotation marks omitted)). 8) The pertinent text of S1014 is: "Whoever knowingly makes any false 8) statement or report, or willfully overvalues any land, property or security, for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of . . . any institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation . . . , upon any application, advance, discount, purchase, purchase agreement, repurchase agreement, commitment, or loan, or any change or extension of any of the same, by renewal, deferment of action or otherwise, or the acceptance, release, or substitution of security therefor, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both." 95-1228 - OPINION 8 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ its terms cover "any" false statement that meets the other requirements in the statute, and the term "false statement" carries no general suggestion of influential significance, see Kungys v. United States, supra, at 781; cf. Kay v. ______ ______________ ______ ___ United States, 303 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1938). Thus, under the first criterion in the ______________ interpretive hierarchy, a natural reading of the full text, see United States v. _____________ American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 542-543 (1940), materiality would _______________________________ not be an element of S1014. (Ftnote. 9) (Ftnote. 9) Nor have respondents come close to showing that at common law the term "false statement" acquired any implication of materiality that came with it into S1014. We do, of course, presume that Congress incorporates the common-law meaning of the terms it uses if those "`terms . . . have accumulated settled meaning under . . . the common law'" and "`the statute [does not] otherwise dictat[e],' " Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 322 (1992) (quoting Community ________________________ _______ _________ for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, supra, at 739). _________________________ _____ ______ ____________________ 9) JUSTICE STEVENS argues that the four criminal acts other than "false 9) statement" listed in S1014 would in fact involve material misstatements, and that it follows on the theories of ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis that _______________ _________________ false statements must also be shown to be material. Post, at 12, n. 12. But ____ this does not follow. The question is not whether the specified categories of statements will almost certainly be material statements in point of fact; like false statements made for the purpose of influencing a lender, the four other criminal acts will virtually always involve material misstatements. The question, however, is whether materiality must be proven as a separate element, and on that question a list of criminal acts, none of which is expressly described as "material," is no premise for the dissent's conclusion under the ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis canons. _______________ _________________ 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 9 ____ Respondents here, however, make no claims about the settled meaning of "false statement" at common law; they merely note that some common-law crimes involving false statements, such as perjury, required proof of materiality. See Brief for Respondents 23-24. But Congress did not codify the crime of perjury or compara- ble common-law crimes in S1014; as we discuss next, it simply consolidated 13 statutory provisions relating to financial institutions, and, in fact, it enacted a separate general perjury provision at 18 U. S. C. S1621, see 62 Stat. 773. (Ftnote. 10) (Ftnote. 10) ____________________ 10) Nor does Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U. S. 490 (1981), help 10) _________ ______________ respondents here. In Fedorenko, we agreed with the Government that, even though _________ the phrase "willfully make a misrepresentation" in S10 of the Displaced Persons Act, 62 Stat. 1013, did not use the term "material," it nonetheless applied only to willful misrepresentations about "material" facts, 449 U. S., at 507-508, and n. 28. The dissent argues we should reach a similar conclusion here, because Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 781 (1988), made it clear that ______ ______________ "misrepresentation" and "false statement" were on par at common law. Post, at ____ 5-6, and n. 6. But the passage from Kungys quoted by the dissent addressed the _______ historic meaning of the term "material," see 485 U. S., at 769, not the common- law meaning of "misrepresentation" or "false statement." Although Kungys ______ supports the view that "materiality" has the same meaning in criminal statutes that prohibit falsehoods to public officials, whether the statutes refer to misrepresentations, see id., at 772-776, or to some form of false statements, ___ see id. at 779-782, that does not mean that "misrepresentation" and "false ___ statement" are identical in carrying an implicit requirement of materiality. Indeed, Kungys distinguished between the common-law meaning of "misrepresenta- ______ tion" and "false testimony," concluding that while the former had been held to carry a materiality requirement in many contexts, the terms "false" or "falsity" did not as frequently carry such an implication. Id., at 781. ___ More fundamentally, 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. See post, at 5-6. 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 meaning to statutory ________ terms does not sweep so broadly. 95-1228 - OPINION 10 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ Statutory history confirms the natural reading. When Congress originally enacted S1014 as part of its recodification of the federal criminal code in 1948, 62 Stat. 752, it explicitly included materiality in other provisions involving false representations. (Ftnote. 11) Even more significantly, of the (Ftnote. 11) 13 provisions brought together by S1014, 10 had previously contained no express materiality provision and received none in the recodifica- tion, (Ftnote. 12) while 3 of the 13 had contained express materiality (Ftnote. 12) requirements ____________________ 11) See 18 U. S. C. S1621, 62 Stat. 773 (entitled "Perjury generally," and 11) prohibiting statements under oath regarding "any material matter which [one] does not believe to be true"); 18 U. S. C. S1001, 62 Stat. 749 (entitled "Statements or entries generally," and prohibiting, inter alia, "knowingly and __________ willfully falsif[ying] . . . a material fact"). 12) See 7 U. S. C. S1514(a) (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement knowing it 12) to be false . . . for the purpose of influencing"); 12 U. S. C. S981 (1946 ed.) ("knowingly mak[ing] any false statement in an application for [a] loan"); 12 U. S. C. S1122 (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement, knowing it to be false, for the purpose of obtaining . . . any advance"), 12 U. S. C. S1123 (1946 ed.) ("willfully overvalu[ing] any property offered as security"); 12 U. S. C. S1248 (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement . . . knowing the same to be false"), 12 U. S. C. S1312 (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement, knowing it to be false, for the purpose of obtaining"), 12 U. S. C. S1313 (1946 ed.) ("willfully overvalu[ing] any property offered as security"), 12 U. S. C. S1441(a) (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement, knowing it to be false, . . . for the purpose of influencing"), 12 U. S. C. S1467(a) (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement, knowing it to be false, . . . for the purpose of influencing"); 15 U. S. C. S616(a) (1946 ed.) ("mak[ing] any statement knowing it to be false . . . for the purpose of obtaining . . . or for the purpose of influencing"). 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 11 ____ and lost them in the course of consolidation. (Ftnote. 13) See Williams v. (Ftnote. 13) ________ United States, 458 U. S. 279, 288 (1982). The most likely inference in these ______________ circumstances is that Congress deliberately dropped the term "materiality" without intending materiality to be an element of S1014. See United States v. _____________ Shabani, 513 U. S. 10, 13-14 (1994). (Ftnote. 14) While two of the three (Ftnote. 14) ________ offenses from which the express materiality requirement was dropped used the term "representation," see n. 12, supra, and thus could have included a ______ materiality element implicitly, see Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S., at 781 ______ ______________ (noting that "misrepresentation" had been held to imply materiality), the remaining eleven would not have, as was clear from the opinion of the Court in Kay v. United States, 303 ___ ______________ ____________________ 13) See 7 U. S. C. S1026(a) (1946 ed.) (making a "material representa- 13) tion"); 12 U. S. C. S596 (1946 ed.) (making a "material statement"); and 12 U. S. C. S1138d(a) (1946 ed.) (making a "material representation"). 14) JUSTICE STEVENS suggests that because he can discern no meaningful 14) difference between the subject matter and penalties involved in the 42 sections of the United States Code criminalizing false statements that expressly include a materiality requirement, and the 54 sections criminalizing false statements that lack an express materiality requirement, we must infer that Congress intended all of the sections to include a materiality element. See post, at ____ 6-11. In other words, Congress must have thought that including materiality in 42 statutes was surplusage. This, of course, is contrary to our presumption that each term in a criminal statute carries meaning. See Bailey v. United ______ ______ States, 516 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 8). Moreover, the dissent's _______ approach to statutory interpretation leads to remarkable results. The statutes cited by the dissent contain a variety of different requirements; for example, some criminalize statements only if they were made with a particular intent, see, e.g., 18 U. S. C. S1919; 33 U. S. C. S931, while others do not, see, e.g., 7 U. S. C. S13(a)(3); 7 U. S. C. S6407(e). Under our colleague's reasoning, unless a court could readily discern a meaningful difference between these two categories of statutes, apart from the language used, it should import the mens ____ rea requirements expressly appearing in some sections to those that lack them. ___ 95-1228 - OPINION 12 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ U. S. 1 (1938). Kay had construed one of the ten statutes that were later ___ mirrored in the language of S1014; (Ftnote. 15) when the petitioner claimed that (Ftnote. 15) the statements she had made could not "endanger or directly influence any loan made by" the decisionmaker, id., at 5, we thought her arguments unimpressive, _____ ibid., and explained that ______ "[i]t does not lie with one knowingly making false statements with intent to mislead the officials of the Corporation to say that the statements were not influential or the information not important. There can be no question that Congress was entitled to require that the information be given in good faith and not falsely with intent to mislead. Whether or not the Corporation would act favorably on the loan is not a matter which concerns one seeking to deceive by false information. The case is not ____________________ 15) Compare S8(a) of the Home Owners' Loan Act, 48 Stat. 134, (providing 15) that "[w]hoever makes any statement, knowing it to be false, or whoever willfully overvalues any security, for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation or the Board or an association upon any application, advance, discount, purchase, or repurchase agreement, or loan, under this Act, or any extension thereof by renewal deferment, or action or otherwise, or the acceptance, release, or substitution of security therefor, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than two years, or both") with S1014 as enacted in 1948, 62 Stat. 752 (providing that "[w]hoever knowingly makes any false statement or report, or willfully overvalues any land, property or security, for the purpose of influ- encing in any way the action of [enumerated institutions] upon any application, advance, discount, purchase, purchase agreement, repurchase agreement, commitment, or loan, or any change or extension of any of the same, by renewal, deferment of action or otherwise, or the acceptance, release, or substitution of security therefor, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both"). 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 13 ____ one of an action for damages but of criminal liability and actual damage is not an ingredient of the offense." Id., at 5-6. (Ftnote. 16) (Ftnote. 16) ____ Although some courts have read Kay as holding only that there is no need for ___ the Government to prove that false statements actually influenced the decisionmaker, see, e.g., United States v. Goberman, 458 F. 2d 226, 229 (CA3 _____ _____________ _________ 1972), the opinion speaks of the importance of the statements as well as their efficacy, and no one reading Kay could reasonably have assumed that criminal ___ falsity presupposed materiality. Since we presume that Congress expects its statutes to be read in conformity with this Court's precedents, see, e.g., North _____ _____ Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 4), and since ______________ _______ the relevant language of the statute in Kay was substantially like that in ___ S1014, Kay stands in the way of any assumption that Congress might have under- ___ stood an express materiality provision to be redundant. Respondents' remaining arguments for affirmance are unavailing. They contend that Congress has ratified holdings of some of the Courts of Appeals that materiality is an element of S1014 by repeatedly amending the statute without rejecting those decisions. But the significance of subsequent congressional action or inaction necessarily varies with the circumstances, and finding any interpretive help in congressional behavior here is impossible. Since 1948, Congress has amended S1014 to modify the list of covered institutions and to increase the maximum penalty, (Ftnote. 17) but without ever (Ftnote. 17) ____________________ 16) We ultimately did not uphold the conviction in Kay, 303 U. S., at 9-10, 16) ____ but vacated the lower court's judgment so that it would be free to address a separate issue relating to the indictment. 17) See Pub. L. 91-609, S915, 84 Stat. 1815 (adding FDIC-insured banks to 17) the list of covered institutions); Pub. L. 101-73, S961(h), 103 Stat. 500 (increasing the maximum punishment from its 1948 level of a $5,000 fine and two years' imprisonment to $1,000,000 and 20 years' imprisonment); Pub. L. 101-647, S2504(g), 104 Stat. 4861 (increasing the maximum prison term to 30 years). 95-1228 - OPINION 14 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ touching the original phraseology criminalizing "false statement[s]" made "for the purpose of influencing" the actions of the enumerated institutions. We thus have at most legislative silence on the crucial statutory language, and we have "frequently cautioned that `[i]t is at best treacherous to find in congressional silence alone the adoption of a controlling rule of law,'" NLRB v. Plasterers, ____ ___________ 404 U. S. 116, 129-130 (1971) (quoting Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, ________ ______________ 69 (1946)). But even if silence could speak, it could not speak unequivocally to the issue here, since over the years judicial opinion has divided on whether S1014 includes a materiality element, see n. 3, supra, and we have previously ______ described the elements of S1014 without any mention of materiality, see Williams ________ v. United States, 458 U. S., at 284. It would thus be impossible to say which ______________ view Congress might have endorsed. See Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U. S. 517, _______ ______________ 527-532 (1994). (Ftnote. 18) (Ftnote. 18) Respondents also rely on the 1948 Reviser's Note to S1014, which discussed the consolidation of the 13 provisions into one, and explained that, apart from two changes not relevant here, (Ftnote. 19) the consolidation "was (Ftnote. 19) ____________________ 18) If we were to rely on legislative history, the reports would be of no 18) help to respondents. See H. R. Rep. No. 91-1556, pp. 70-71 (1970) (addressing the amendment adding FDIC-insured institutions, describing the statute as "provid[ing] penalties for making false statements or reports in connection with loans or similar transactions"); H. R. Rep. No. 101-54, pt. 1, p. 400 (1989) (on the amendment increasing the maximum prison term to 20 years and a $1,000,000 fine, describing S1014 as "deal[ing] with false statements in loan and credit applications"); H. R. Rep. No. 101-681, pt. 1, p. 175 (1990) (on the amendment increasing the maximum prison term to 30 years, describing S1014 as "relating to fraudulent loan or credit applications"). 19) The two substantive changes were: the adoption of a single punishment, 19) which was identical to the punishment set forth in the majority of the predecessor statutes; and the enumeration of a uniform definition of the types of transactions covered by the statute, which was a newly phrased "composite" of the then-existing terms. See Historical and Revision Notes following S1014, 18 U. S. C., p. 247. 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 15 ____ without change of substance," Historical and Revision Notes following S1014, 18 U. S. C., p. 247. Respondents say that the revisers' failure to mention the omission of materiality from the text of S1014 means that Congress must have "completely overlooked" the issue. Brief for Respondents 29-30. But surely this indication that the "staff of experts" who prepared the legislation, Muniz _____ v. Hoffman, 422 U. S. 454, 470, n. 10 (1975), either overlooked or chose to say ________ nothing about changing the language of three of the former statutes does nothing to muddy the ostensibly unambiguous provision of the statute as enacted by Congress, cf. Consumer Product Safety Comm'n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. ______________________________ ___________________ 102, 108 (1980) ("[a]bsent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary [statutory] language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive"). In any event, the revisers' assumption that the consolidation made no substantive change was simply wrong. As respondents candidly conceded at oral argument, they failed to discover a single case holding that any of the predecessor statutes lacking a materiality requirement implicitly contained one, and after our decision in Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1 (1938), Congress could not ___ ______________ have assumed that a materiality element was implicit in a comparable statute that was silent on the issue, see supra, at 10-11. Dropping the materiality ______ element from the three statutes could not, then, reasonably have been seen as making no change. Those who write revisers' notes have proven fallible before. See State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 532, n. 11 ______________________________ ________ 95-1228 - OPINION 16 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ (1967). (Ftnote. 20) (Ftnote. 20) Respondents next urge that we follow the reasoning of some Courts of Appeals in reading materiality into the statute to avoid the improbability that Congress intended to impose substantial criminal penalties on relatively trivial or innocent conduct. See 63 F. 3d, at 751; United States v. Williams, 12 F. 3d _____________ _________ 452, 458 (CA5 1994); United States v. Staniforth, 971 F. 2d 1355, 1358 (CA7 _____________ ___________ ____________________ 20) The dissent contends that, because McClanahan v. United States, 12 20) ___________ _____________ F. 2d 263, 264 (CA7 1926), and United States v. Kreidler, 11 F. Supp. 402, 403 ______________ ________ (SD Iowa 1935), "held or assumed that" two statutes without an explicit materiality requirement nonetheless carried an implicit one, the revisers likely assumed that all of the statutes consolidated in S1014 contained a materiality requirement. Post, at 3-4. Neither case, however, held that one of S1014's ____ predecessor statutes contained a materiality requirement. In Kreidler, the ________ defendant challenged his indictment under S8(a) of the Home Owners' Loan Act (the same provision at issue two years later in Kay, see n. 14, supra), arguing ____ _____ that a statement "must be material and calculated to deceive," Kreidler, 11 ________ F. Supp., at 403. The District Court simply "assume[d]" the statement "must be relevant and material," and then found that the indictment satisfied those requirements. Id., at 403-404. The question in McClanahan was whether the ___ __________ defendant's prosecution under S31 of the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, 39 Stat. 382, 12 U. S. C. S 981 (1946 ed.), was beyond Congress's constitutional power because the statute did "not limit the [punishable] statement to such as relate or are material to the proposed loan." 12 F. 2d, at 263. The court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. While stating that it "would in all proba- bility be concluded" that "wholly frivolous and unrelated" false statements made in a loan application "did not supply the basis for a prosecution under section 31," the court made it clear that this was dicta, because it explained in the very next sentence that "there [was] no question of the relevancy of the alleged false statements knowingly made" in the case before it. Id., at 264. In deter- ____ mining what the revisers might have thought the words of S1014 meant, we think it far more likely that they would have relied on the clear implication of our 1938 decision in Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1, rather than on the dicta ___ ______________ from two earlier District or Appeals Court cases. 95-1228 - OPINION UNITED STATES v. WELLS 17 ____ 1992). But we think there is no clear call to take such a course. It is true that we have held S1014 inapplicable to depositing false checks at a bank, in part because we thought that it would have "ma[d]e a surprisingly broad range of unremarkable conduct a violation of federal law," Williams v. United States, ________ ______________ supra, at 286-287, n. 8, and elsewhere thought it possible to construe a ______ prohibition narrowly where a loose mens rea requirement would otherwise have ________ resulted in a surprisingly broad statutory sweep, see United States v. X- _____________ __ Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 71-72 (1994). But an unqualified reading of _____________________ S1014 poses no risk of criminalizing so much conduct as to suggest that Congress meant something short of the straightforward reading. The language makes a false statement to one of the enumerated financial institutions a crime only if the speaker knows the falsity of what he says and intends it to influence the institution. A statement made "for the purpose of influencing" a bank will not usually be about something a banker would regard as trivial, and "it will be relatively rare that the Government will be able to prove that" a false statement "was . . . made with the subjective intent" of influencing a decision unless it could first prove that the statement has "the natural tendency to influence the decision," Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S., at 780-781. Hence ______ ______________ the literal reading of the statute will not normally take the scope of S1014 beyond the limit that a materiality requirement would impose. Finally, the rule of lenity is no help to respondents here. "The rule of lenity applies only if, `after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,' . . . we can make `no more than a guess as to what Congress intended.'" Reno v. Koray, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 14) ____ ______ (quoting Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 239 (1993), and Ladner v. United _____ ______________ ______ ______ States, 358 U. S. 169, 178 (1958)). Read straightforwardly, S1014 _______ 95-1228 - OPINION 18 UNITED STATES v. WELLS ____ reveals no ambiguity, its mens rea requirements narrow the sweep of the statute, ________ and this is not a case of guesswork reaching out for lenity. IV Respondents advance two further reasons to affirm the Court of Appeals's judgment, even on the assumption that materiality is not an element. According to respondents, the trial judge's instruction that "[t]he materiality of the statement . . . alleged to be false . . . is not a matter with which you are concerned and should not be considered by you in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant[s]," App. 43, probably left the jurors with the impression that the statements as alleged would have been material, and that impression could have improperly influenced the jury in passing on the elements of falsity and purpose. Respondents also suggest that because the indictment alleged materiality, any ruling that materiality need not be shown in this case would impermissibly "amend" the indictment contrary to the Fifth Amendment's requirement that "[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury." U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. Since respondents failed to raise either of these issues in their briefs before the Court of Appeals and that court did not pass on these questions, we leave it to the Court of Appeals on remand to take up the propriety of raising these issues now and to address them if warranted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. _________________