In Dealy v. United States (1893), the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a case involving tax evasion. The defendant, John Dealy, was charged with evading taxes by making false entries in his company's books and records to understate its income. He argued that he could not be prosecuted because the law did not specifically criminalize such conduct and that it violated his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination as he was compelled to produce these records for inspection by government officials. However, the court rejected both arguments stating that even though there wasn't an explicit provision in the law addressing this specific conduct, general provisions of fraud were applicable here; moreover, producing business records did not constitute self-incrimination since they are considered corporate property rather than personal documents protected under Fifth Amendment rights. Therefore, Dealy's conviction was upheld.

In the dissenting opinion for Dealy v. United States, it was argued that the defendant's actions did not constitute a crime under U.S. law because they were not explicitly prohibited by statute. The dissenting justices believed that while Mr. Dealy may have acted dishonestly in his role as an agent of the Post Office Department, he did not technically commit fraud or embezzlement since there was no specific law against what he had done - using official funds to pay personal debts and then replacing them before anyone noticed a discrepancy. They contended that this case should be treated as one of administrative misconduct rather than criminal wrongdoing, and therefore fell outside the jurisdiction of federal courts.