In the 1936 case United States v. Resnick et al., the Supreme Court of the United States dealt with issues related to bankruptcy and fraud. The defendants, Samuel Resnick and others, were charged with conspiracy to defraud creditors by concealing assets during a bankruptcy proceeding. They had allegedly transferred property from their bankrupt corporation to another company they controlled in order to prevent it from being used for debt repayment. The trial court convicted them based on this evidence but did not instruct jurors that intent was necessary for conviction under federal law - an omission which formed the basis of their appeal. The Supreme Court held that while fraudulent intent is indeed required for conviction under relevant statutes, such intent can be inferred from circumstantial evidence or even directly proven facts about a defendant's conduct and knowledge at relevant times. Therefore, although explicit instruction on this point would have been preferable, its absence did not necessarily render the jury instructions incorrect or incomplete as long as other parts of those instructions made clear what kind of behavior constituted illegal concealment.

The dissenting opinion in the United States v. Resnick et al., 1936 case argued that the majority's decision to uphold the conviction of defendants under a statute prohibiting conspiracy to defraud the U.S. was incorrect because it expanded federal jurisdiction too broadly and violated principles of federalism. The dissent contended that there was no evidence proving any actual harm or loss suffered by the government as a result of defendants' actions, which involved selling alcohol illegally during Prohibition era but not evading taxes or other financial obligations towards government. It also emphasized on respecting state sovereignty over local matters such as regulation and enforcement related to alcohol sales, unless clear interstate implications were present. Thus, according to this view, using federal law for prosecuting purely intrastate activities constituted an abuse of power and threatened constitutional balance between state and national governments.