In the case of Stroud v. United States (1919), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a prisoner's constitutional rights were not violated when officials read his personal letters without his knowledge or consent, and used them as evidence in a murder trial against him. The defendant, Robert Furey Stroud, was serving time for manslaughter when he allegedly killed a prison guard at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas. During the investigation into this second crime, prison officials intercepted and opened all of Stroud’s outgoing mail - including correspondence with his brother about the incident - which they later introduced at trial to secure another conviction for first-degree murder. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Stroud argued that this constituted an unlawful search and seizure under Fourth Amendment protections; however, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing for a unanimous court held that these protections do not extend to prisoners because their incarceration implies forfeiture of certain rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Stroud v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis argued that the Fifth Amendment's protection against double jeopardy was violated when Stroud was tried and convicted a second time for the same crime after his first conviction had been overturned on appeal. He contended that while an accused has a right to seek reversal of his conviction on appeal, it does not give the government an equal opportunity to retry him if he is successful in overturning his initial conviction. The state should not be allowed multiple attempts to convict someone for the same offense as this would undermine one’s constitutional protections and could lead to abuse of power by prosecutors who might use their resources unfairly against defendants.