In the 1916 case of Cross v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on an issue related to criminal law and procedure. The defendant, Cross, was convicted for perjury in a lower court after he lied under oath during his bankruptcy proceedings. He appealed this conviction to the Supreme Court arguing that his false statements were not material to his bankruptcy case and therefore should not constitute perjury. However, the Supreme Court disagreed with this argument stating that any lie made under oath in a judicial proceeding is considered perjury regardless of its relevance or impact on the outcome of said proceeding. Therefore, it upheld Cross's conviction affirming that lying under oath constitutes perjury irrespective of whether such lies are materially significant or not.

In the dissenting opinion for Cross v. United States, Justice Holmes disagreed with the majority's ruling that a conspiracy to defraud the United States by obtaining and selling liquor on an Indian reservation was not covered under existing laws. He argued that while there may not have been explicit language in the law about such a scheme, it should be understood as illegal because it undermines government authority and operations. Furthermore, he contended that if one could conspire to commit fraud without legal repercussions simply because their specific method of fraud wasn't explicitly mentioned in legislation, then many other forms of criminal conspiracies would also go unpunished due to this loophole. Therefore, he believed that any act which intentionally deceives or cheats the government out of its rights or property should be considered unlawful regardless of whether they are specifically enumerated within statutes.