Jesse Hoyt was charged with the crime of assault and battery on a United States revenue officer. The case went to trial in the Circuit Court for the District of Maine, where he was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine. He appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing that it violated his constitutional rights under Article III Section 2 of the Constitution which states that “the Trial of all Crimes…shall be held in the State where they shall have been committed”. The Supreme Court ruled against him, finding that Congress had authority over such matters as long as it did not violate any other part of the Constitution or laws passed by Congress itself. They also noted that while there may have been some irregularities in how this particular case was handled, these were minor enough so as not to invalidate Hoyt's conviction or sentence. Ultimately, they concluded that since no violation occurred here then Hoyt's appeal must fail and his conviction stand.

In the case of Jesse Hoyt v. The United States, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a conviction for larceny in New York could be used as evidence of prior criminal activity in Massachusetts. In an 8-1 decision, the court held that it could not. Justice McLean wrote a dissenting opinion arguing that there should be no distinction between convictions from different states and that they should all be admissible as evidence of prior criminal activity. He argued that this would ensure uniformity across state lines and prevent criminals from taking advantage of differences between jurisdictions to escape justice or receive more lenient sentences than they otherwise would have received had their crimes been committed within one jurisdiction only.