In the case of Murphy v. Hunt, 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a Nebraska law that denied bail to individuals accused of certain sexual offenses violated their constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against excessive bail. The plaintiff in this case had been charged with first-degree sexual assault and was denied bail based on this state law. However, before his appeal reached the Supreme Court, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison - thus mooting his claim for relief regarding pretrial detention without bail. The court ruled that it could not make a decision because there no longer existed an actual controversy; since Hunt had already pleaded guilty and received sentencing by lower courts prior to reaching SCOTUS level review, any ruling would be purely hypothetical or advisory in nature which is outside its jurisdiction as per Article III of Constitution. This principle is known as "mootness doctrine" where courts avoid deciding cases that have lost practical significance due to change in circumstances after initiation of legal proceedings.

In the dissenting opinion for Murphy v. Hunt, Justice William Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's decision to dismiss the case as moot. He argued that there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subject to similar action again in future and therefore, it should not have been dismissed on grounds of mootness. In his view, this case fell under an exception to the general rule regarding moot cases because it was capable of repetition yet evading review due to its short duration (the time between setting bail and trial). Thus, he believed that such issues deserved judicial resolution despite changes in circumstances during litigation process.