In Pollard v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal court does not have jurisdiction to resentence a defendant after he has begun serving his sentence and was released on parole. The case involved an individual named Clemmie Pollard who had been convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 20 years in prison. After serving part of his sentence, he was paroled but later arrested for violating the terms of his parole. He was returned to prison whereupon the sentencing judge increased his original sentence by five years without providing any notice or opportunity for him to be heard. The Supreme Court held that once a prisoner starts serving their time, they acquire certain rights including protection against increase in their sentences retroactively.

In the dissenting opinion for Pollard v. United States, Justice Frankfurter argued that the majority had misinterpreted both the historical context and legal precedent surrounding territorial acquisitions by the U.S. He contended that when Alabama became a state, it did not automatically gain ownership of all submerged lands within its borders; rather, these lands remained under federal control until explicitly transferred to state ownership. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's interpretation of previous court decisions as establishing a principle of automatic transfer of such lands upon statehood. Instead, he believed those cases simply affirmed states' rights to regulate their own internal waters once they had been granted ownership over them by Congress or through other means.