In McMullen v. United States (1892), the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a case involving an individual who was convicted of perjury during his naturalization proceedings. The defendant, McMullen, had falsely sworn that he owed no allegiance to any foreign government and had resided in the United States for five years preceding his application for citizenship - both requirements for naturalization under U.S law at the time. However, it was later discovered that he still held allegiance to Queen Victoria and had not fulfilled the residency requirement. The court upheld McMullen's conviction stating that false swearing in such circumstances constituted perjury even if there were other grounds upon which citizenship could have been denied or if officials would have otherwise discovered the truth before granting citizenship.

In the dissenting opinion for McMullen v. United States, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold McMullen's conviction under a statute prohibiting conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government was incorrect because there wasn't sufficient evidence of an actual intent to defraud. The dissenting justices believed that while McMullen and his co-conspirators may have intended to deceive or mislead government officials, this alone did not constitute an intention to defraud under the law unless they also sought some sort of financial gain from their actions. They further contended that since no such pecuniary benefit was evident in this case, upholding McMullen’s conviction would effectively broaden the scope of what constitutes fraud against the government beyond what Congress had intended when drafting and passing said legislation.