In the case of Cichos v. Indiana, 1966, the U.S Supreme Court was asked to consider whether a defendant's constitutional rights were violated when he was convicted for involuntary manslaughter after being acquitted on charges of reckless homicide arising from the same incident. The petitioner, Mr. Cichos, had been involved in a fatal car accident and was charged with both offenses under Indiana law but argued that his subsequent trial and conviction for involuntary manslaughter constituted double jeopardy - being tried twice for the same offense - which is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court dismissed this argument on procedural grounds without ruling directly on its merits. It held that it could not review state court judgments based solely upon federal statutory or constitutional issues unless those issues had first been properly raised before and considered by state courts. As Mr.Cichos failed to raise his double jeopardy claim at any stage during his trial or appeal within Indiana’s judicial system prior to seeking relief from federal courts, his petition was denied.

In the dissenting opinion for Cichos v. Indiana, Justice Fortas argued that the petitioner's constitutional rights were violated when he was not allowed to present evidence of his good character during trial. He believed that this restriction unfairly limited his ability to defend himself and could have influenced the jury's decision. Furthermore, Justice Fortas disagreed with the majority’s view on harmless error doctrine application in this case, stating it should only be used when a court can confidently say an error did not influence a jury’s verdict - which wasn't possible here due to nature of excluded evidence. Thus, he concluded that such denial constituted prejudicial error requiring reversal of conviction.