In the 1904 case of Benson v. Henkel, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a person could not use the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in different jurisdictions for essentially the same crime. The defendant, Charles R. Heike, was subpoenaed by a grand jury in Washington D.C., after he had already been indicted on similar charges in New York City and invoked his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to refuse testimony. However, Justice Edward Douglass White wrote for an unanimous court that since Heike faced no criminal liability in Washington D.C., he did not have grounds to plead self-incrimination there based on his indictment elsewhere.

In the dissenting opinion for Benson v. Henkel, Justice Brewer argued that the majority's decision violated a key principle of American law: that no person should be compelled to incriminate themselves. He contended that forcing an individual to travel from one jurisdiction to another for trial could potentially expose them to self-incrimination in the second jurisdiction, thereby violating their Fifth Amendment rights. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's interpretation of federal statutes regarding interstate extradition and believed they were being applied too broadly in this case. In his view, these laws were intended only for cases where a crime was committed in one state and then fled from justice by moving across state lines - not situations like Benson’s where there was no evidence suggesting he had ever been present or committed any illegal act within New York State.