In the 1909 U.S. Supreme Court case Heike v. United States, defendant Heinrich Albert Carl Heike was convicted of aiding and abetting in sugar fraud by underweighing imported sugar to reduce customs duties payable to the government. The court ruled that a certificate of immunity granted during his testimony before a grand jury did not protect him from prosecution for crimes he had admitted during that testimony. This decision clarified that such certificates only protected witnesses from having their testimonies used against them directly, but it did not grant full immunity from prosecution based on independent evidence related to those admissions.

In the dissenting opinion for Heike v. United States, Justice Harlan argued that the defendant was not given a fair trial due to prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecutor had threatened one of the witnesses with prosecution if he did not testify against Heike, which Harlan believed violated his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment. Furthermore, Harlan disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "fraud" in this case; he contended that it should be limited to cases where there is an intent to defraud or harm another party and does not apply when someone merely seeks advantage over others without causing them any injury or loss. In essence, while acknowledging that Heike may have acted dishonestly by concealing information from customs officials about sugar imports in order to pay lower duties, Justice Harlan felt this did not constitute fraud as defined by law since no specific individual or entity suffered direct harm as a result.