In the case of Richard L. Chapman, John M. Schoenecker and Patrick Brumm v. United States (1990), the defendants were convicted for their involvement in a scheme to defraud investors by selling unregistered securities through misrepresentation and omission of material facts about an oil drilling venture. The Supreme Court was asked to determine whether or not the federal mail fraud statute applied to this case, as it involved "a scheme or artifice to defraud" that deprived people of property rights but did not involve money or tangible property. The court held that the mail fraud statute does apply in such cases where there is deprivation of intangible rights like honest services, even if no money or tangible property has been lost by victims directly due to fraudulent activities conducted via mail system. This ruling expanded interpretation of federal law regarding what constitutes 'property' under its provisions against fraudulent schemes.

In the dissenting opinion for Chapman, Schoenecker and Brumm v. United States, Justice Marshall argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on evidence obtained through warrantless thermal imaging was an infringement of Fourth Amendment rights. He contended that this technology constituted a search as it provided information about activities inside private homes which would not have been discernible without physical intrusion or surveillance. Therefore, he believed its use should be subject to constitutional limitations requiring probable cause and judicial oversight in order to prevent arbitrary invasions of privacy by law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's assertion that individuals had no reasonable expectation of privacy against such surveillance methods because they were freely available for public use; instead arguing that their relative novelty meant most people were unaware of them and therefore could not reasonably be expected to guard against them.