Appellate court's rationale started with the ruling that the particular case requires no element of criminal intent and that the conclusion of this was because of Congress failed to express the requisite and their rationale being with United States v. Behrman and United States v. Balint. They had noticed that the courts before hand had assumed that the "omission did not signify disapproval of the principal but merely recognized that intent was so inherent in the idea of the offense that it required no statutory affirmation" which should not be the case since the court "took occasion more explicitly to relate adandonment of the ingredient of intent." Appellate court noted that the "Government apparently did not believe that conversion stood alone when it drew this one-count indictment to change that Morissette, "did unlawfully, willfully and knowingly steal and convert to his own use. Appellate court then reasoned with had the statute of the civil tort of "one takes property which turns out to belong to another, his innocent intent will not shield him from making restitution or indemnity, for his well-meaning many not be allowed to deprive another of his own" and then be applied to the situation, it would make all crimes of all unwitting, inadvertent and unintended conversion. Court then also reason with theories of criminal intent presence being essential such as it being "decided by the court, a presumption of the law, apparently conclusive or predicated upon the isolated act of taking rather than upon all the circumstances -which they believed to be in error. The fact that the only conclusion supplied was that it was presumed that the one time that the defendant took the casing was of intention to steal. The fact that the testimony and all surrounding circumstances were omitted was not adequate for the sole conclusion.

Explain the rationale in simpler terms.