In the case of Wright v. United States in 1937, the Supreme Court ruled on a matter concerning jury selection. The petitioner, an African-American man named Thomas J. Wright, was convicted for murder by an all-white jury in Washington D.C., and he appealed his conviction arguing that it violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment due to systematic exclusion of black individuals from juries. However, the court found no evidence supporting this claim as there were records showing that several black jurors had served in other cases during that period and even within the same week as Wright's trial. Therefore, they concluded that while racial discrimination did exist at large within society at this time, there was insufficient proof to demonstrate its presence specifically within these judicial proceedings or any deliberate intent to exclude African-Americans from serving on juries in Washington D.C.. Consequently, Mr.Wright’s conviction was upheld.

In the dissenting opinion for Wright v. United States, Justice McReynolds argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on circumstantial evidence was flawed. He believed that there was not enough substantial evidence presented at trial to support a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt. The defendant had been convicted of mail fraud, but Justice McReynolds contended that no direct proof of fraudulent intent or actual loss by any victim had been provided during the trial proceedings. In his view, this lack of concrete evidence made it impossible to definitively establish guilt and thus he disagreed with upholding the conviction solely based on inference from indirect facts.