This remained the common-law definition of marriage throughout the British Empire and successor states.

But the difficulty with this approach was that modern definitions have strayed far from the common-law definition.

"The arcane distinctions embedded in the common-law definition have little relevance to modern law enforcement concerns."

For these reasons, the Court rejected the idea of reading 924(e)'s definition of "burglary" as the common-law definition.

Congress having left out a definition, "employee" was understood to be common-law master-and-servant definition.

(Of course, today this behavior would be subject to punishment under statutory definitions of crimes rather than common-law definitions.)

For example, if a state's murder statute does not define "human being," that state's courts will rely on the common-law definition.

Second, Justice Stevens said, the common-law definition of extortion, as well as its history in American law, did not require a demand by a public official.