In the 1897 case Jolly v. United States, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a dispute regarding land ownership in Oklahoma. The plaintiff, Jolly, was an individual who had settled and made improvements on a piece of land before it was officially opened for settlement by Congress. When the government later sold this land to another party, Jolly sued for compensation for his improvements and possession rights based on his prior occupancy. However, the court held that since he occupied the land before it was legally open for settlement under federal law (the Homestead Act), he did not have any legal claim to either ownership or compensation from its sale by the government. This ruling established that preemption rights could only be granted after lands were officially declared available for settlement by Congress.

In the dissenting opinion for Jolly v. United States, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on circumstantial evidence was flawed. The dissenting justices believed that there were reasonable doubts about the defendant's guilt and thus he should have been acquitted. They pointed out inconsistencies in witness testimonies and lack of direct evidence linking the defendant to the crime as reasons for their disagreement with the majority ruling. Furthermore, they expressed concern over potential miscarriages of justice if convictions could be upheld solely on circumstantial evidence without any requirement for corroboration or confirmation from more reliable sources such as eyewitness accounts or physical proof.