In the case of United States v. Henry (1979), the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a paid government informant who deliberately elicited incriminating information from a defendant, after indictment and while in custody, violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The defendant, Floyd Henry was serving time for other offenses when he made statements about an unrelated crime to Nichols, a fellow inmate acting as an FBI informant. These statements were used against him at trial leading to his conviction for bank robbery. However, the court held that since Nichols acted on behalf of the government and intentionally created situations likely to induce Henry into making incriminating statements without legal representation present; this constituted interference with his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment.

In the dissenting opinion for United States v. Henry, 1979, Justice William Rehnquist argued that the majority's decision to suppress evidence obtained through a paid informant violated established precedent and undermined law enforcement efforts. He contended that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not prohibit government informants from gathering information from defendants after indictment unless they deliberately elicit it in a manner akin to interrogation. In this case, he believed there was no such deliberate elicitation as the defendant voluntarily shared information with his cellmate who happened to be an informant. Furthermore, he emphasized that excluding voluntary statements made by defendants would significantly hamper investigations into criminal activities and could potentially lead to wrongful acquittals of guilty parties.