In Schneble v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the issue of whether a confession obtained in violation of Miranda rights could be considered harmless error if other substantial evidence was presented at trial. The defendant, Ernest Robert Schebly, had been convicted for first-degree murder based on his own confession and corroborating physical evidence found at the crime scene. However, he appealed arguing that his confession should have been excluded because he was not adequately informed about his right to remain silent or to have an attorney present during questioning as required by Miranda v. Arizona (1966). The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Florida stating that even though there may have been a technical breach of Miranda rules when obtaining Schneble's statement, it did not automatically require reversal of conviction since overwhelming independent evidence existed pointing towards guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

In the dissenting opinion for Schneble v. Florida, Justice William O. Douglas argued that the majority's decision to uphold Mr. Schneble's conviction despite a violation of his Miranda rights was fundamentally flawed and set a dangerous precedent for future cases involving coerced confessions or statements obtained without proper legal counsel present. He contended that any confession made under these circumstances should be considered inherently untrustworthy and therefore inadmissible as evidence in court, regardless of whether other corroborating evidence exists to support it. Furthermore, he expressed concern about the potential erosion of individual constitutional rights if law enforcement agencies were allowed to disregard procedural safeguards with impunity whenever they deemed them inconvenient or unnecessary.