In the 1912 case Heike v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on whether a defendant could be prosecuted for perjury after giving testimony under immunity from prosecution in another trial. The court held that such prosecutions were permissible if they were based on evidence independent of the immunized testimony. In this case, Christian Rave Heike was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government by concealing sugar import weights and quantities to avoid paying customs duties. After being granted immunity from further prosecution related to these charges, he testified before a grand jury investigating similar crimes committed by other individuals within his company. Later, however, he was indicted and convicted for perjury based on discrepancies between his grand jury testimony and earlier statements made during his own trial proceedings.

In the dissenting opinion for Heike v. United States, Justice Hughes argued that the defendant should have been granted immunity from prosecution because he had testified before a grand jury under compulsion and without having waived his constitutional right against self-incrimination. The majority held that such testimony could be used in subsequent prosecutions related to the same matter, but Justice Hughes disagreed. He believed this violated the spirit of Fifth Amendment protections and undermined their purpose by allowing compelled testimony to be used as evidence in criminal proceedings. Furthermore, he contended that it was unfair to prosecute someone based on information they were forced to provide under threat of contempt charges if they remained silent.