In the 1922 case of Conley v. Barton, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving property rights and inheritance laws. The plaintiff, Mrs. Conley, was contesting her late husband's will which left his estate to his brother-in-law Mr. Barton instead of her due to their separation at the time of his death. She argued that under Kentucky law she should have been considered a widow and thus entitled to inherit despite their estrangement because they were not legally divorced before he died. The court disagreed with Mrs.Conley’s argument stating that although they were technically still married when he passed away, their long-term separation meant she had forfeited any claim as a surviving spouse under state law since it could be inferred from circumstances that there was an intention for permanent abandonment by both parties involved in this marriage. Therefore, the Supreme Court upheld lower courts' decisions ruling in favor of Mr.Barton who inherited all properties according to deceased’s will.

The dissenting opinion in the Conley v. Barton case argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling, which found Mr. Conley guilty of violating an Alabama law prohibiting interracial cohabitation, was incorrect and unjust. The dissenters contended that this state law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by unfairly targeting interracial couples for punishment while allowing same-race couples who live together outside marriage to do so without legal consequences. They further asserted that such laws were rooted in racial prejudice rather than any legitimate public interest or moral concern about non-marital cohabitation per se, thus making them unconstitutional under federal law. In addition, they criticized their colleagues' reliance on outdated precedents upholding similar anti-miscegenation laws from earlier periods when societal attitudes towards race relations were markedly different from those prevailing at present times.