In the 1914 case of Gleason v. Thaw, Harry K. Thaw was accused of murdering Stanford White over a dispute involving Evelyn Nesbit, an actress and model who had been involved with both men. After being declared insane and committed to an asylum in New York, Thaw escaped to Canada where he was arrested again for kidnapping and assaulting Frederick Gump Jr., a teenage boy from Kansas City. The United States sought his extradition on the grounds that he had violated his bail conditions by fleeing New York after escaping from the asylum. The Supreme Court ruled against extraditing him back to America because they found that violating bail conditions did not constitute a crime under Canadian law or international treaties at that time; therefore it could not be used as grounds for extradition. Instead, they ordered him returned to New York State custody due to his escape from the mental institution there.

In the dissenting opinion for Gleason v. Thaw, 1914, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling denying Harry K. Thaw's petition for habeas corpus was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that Thaw had been unlawfully detained in New Hampshire after escaping from an asylum in New York where he had been committed following his acquittal on murder charges by reason of insanity. They contended that since there were no legal proceedings pending against him in New York at the time of his escape and subsequent arrest in New Hampshire, he should not have been extradited back to New York as a fugitive from justice but rather treated as an escaped mental patient under different laws governing interstate transfer of such individuals.