In the case of Mottram v. United States in 1925, the Supreme Court ruled on an appeal by a defendant convicted for illegally transporting alcohol during Prohibition. The defendant, Mottram, argued that he was too intoxicated to form intent at the time of his arrest and therefore could not be held legally responsible for his actions. However, the court rejected this argument stating that voluntary intoxication is not a defense against criminal charges as it does not negate mens rea (the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing). This ruling established precedent in American law regarding voluntary intoxication and its relation to criminal liability.

In the dissenting opinion for Mottram v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on evidence obtained through an illegal search and seizure. He argued that this violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause or a warrant issued by a judge. Holmes believed that any evidence obtained in violation of these rights should be excluded from trial as it was illegally obtained, regardless of its relevance or importance to the case at hand. This principle would later become known as "the exclusionary rule". In his view, upholding such convictions undermined civil liberties and set dangerous precedents for future cases involving similar circumstances.