In the case of Russell v. United States in 1900, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a house used for lottery purposes was subject to seizure and forfeiture under federal law. The defendant, William W. Russell, had been using his property for conducting an illegal lottery business and argued that this action by the government constituted as an excessive fine violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. However, Justice Peckham delivered the opinion of a unanimous court stating that such seizures did not constitute as "punishment," but were rather remedial civil actions. Therefore, they didn't fall within constitutional prohibitions against excessive fines or cruel punishments.

In the dissenting opinion for Russell v. United States, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on an indictment with ambiguous language was incorrect. He believed that ambiguity in an indictment should be resolved in favor of the defendant, not against them. The indictment accused Russell of conspiring to defraud both "the United States" and "persons unknown," which Harlan found problematic because it did not specify whether these were two separate offenses or one combined offense. This lack of clarity could have led the jury to convict even if they only believed Russell guilty of one part but not another, violating his right to a fair trial by potentially lowering the prosecution's burden of proof. Therefore, he felt this case should have been remanded for a new trial with clear instructions about what exactly needed proving beyond reasonable doubt.