In Bigby v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving an individual who had been convicted of murder in Indian Territory and sentenced to death. The defendant argued that his conviction should be overturned because he was not allowed to testify in his own defense, which he claimed violated his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. However, the court rejected this argument, stating that while defendants have the right not to incriminate themselves by remaining silent during their trial, they do not have an absolute right to testify if they choose to do so. Furthermore, it was noted that at the time of Bigby's trial there were still laws prohibiting defendants from testifying in criminal cases due its potential for perjury or fabrication of evidence.

In the dissenting opinion for Bigby v. United States, the justice argued that there was a lack of evidence to support the conviction and therefore it should be overturned. The defendant was accused of stealing letters from mailboxes, but no one saw him do this act nor were any stolen letters found in his possession. There was only circumstantial evidence suggesting he might have had an opportunity to commit such thefts because he lived near where they occurred and sometimes walked past those mailboxes on his way home from work. This alone, according to the dissenting justice, is insufficient grounds for a conviction as it does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Bigby committed these crimes. He believed that convicting someone based solely on suspicion or possibility sets a dangerous precedent which could lead to wrongful convictions in future cases.