In the 1903 case Rogers v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving an African American man named William Rogers who was convicted of murder in Alabama and sentenced to death. The defense argued that his conviction should be overturned because African Americans were systematically excluded from both grand and petit juries in Montgomery County where he was tried, violating his Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. However, the Supreme Court upheld Roger's conviction with a 7-2 decision stating that there wasn't enough evidence showing systematic exclusion of black jurors or racial discrimination by state officials during jury selection process. This ruling underscored how difficult it could be for defendants to prove systemic racial bias within judicial systems at this time.

The dissenting opinion in the Rogers v. Alabama case argued that the majority's decision was a violation of constitutional rights, specifically those protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. The justice believed that by upholding an Alabama law which prohibited black and white people from playing dominoes together, it reinforced racial segregation and discrimination. He contended that this ruling contradicted previous court decisions which had struck down similar laws on grounds of equal protection violations. Furthermore, he expressed concern about potential implications for future cases involving civil liberties if such discriminatory state laws were allowed to stand unchallenged by federal courts.