Palko v. Connecticut
Palko v. Connecticut is a significant Supreme Court case that addressed the application of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy protection to state law through the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Frank Palko was convicted of second-degree murder after killing two police officers during a burglary. Following the conviction, the state appealed, leading to a retrial where Palko was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko's defense argued that this retrial violated his protection against double jeopardy, which prohibits an individual from being tried twice for the same offense.
The Supreme Court, in a ruling led by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, determined that the right against double jeopardy was not fundamental enough to be applied to the states. This decision emphasized a selective approach to incorporating constitutional rights, suggesting that only certain fundamental rights were essential to a fair justice system. Ultimately, Palko was executed in 1938. The implications of this case were significant, as it set a precedent for how the Bill of Rights could be applied to the states, a ruling that was later overturned in 1969 with Benton v. Maryland, which extended double jeopardy protections to state courts.
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Palko v. Connecticut
The Case U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the application to the states of the Fifth Amendment right to protection against double jeopardy
Date Decided on December 6, 1937
The Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling held that the Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy was not a fundamental right and thus was not applicable to the states.
Frank Palka, whose name was spelled incorrectly as Palko on court documents, killed two officers while escaping from a burglary and was charged with first-degree murder. He was convicted of the lesser offense of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The state of Connecticut appealed the case, pursuant to a state statute that allowed the prosecution to appeal in certain criminal cases, and won a new trial. In the second trial, Palko was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko appealed the second conviction on the grounds that the second conviction violated his rightful protection against double jeopardy.
In Palko, the specific issue before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether the Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy applied to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In writing the majority opinion, Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo held that the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause protected only those Bill of Rights guarantees that were deemed fundamental and were “of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty.” Examples of such fundamental rights were freedom of thought and speech and the right to a jury trial in criminal cases, because without these rights, a fair system of justice would be impossible. In upholding Palko’s conviction, the Court reasoned that double jeopardy was not a fundamental right. Palko was executed in Connecticut’s electric chair on April 12, 1938.
Impact
The Palko case represented the Court’s struggle to find an appropriate test to extend the Bill of Rights to the states and relied on a subjective case-by-case approach. The decision was overturned in Benton v. Maryland in 1969, whereby the U.S. Supreme Court applied the protection against double jeopardy to the states.
Bibliography
Amar, Akhil R. America’s Constitution. New York: Random House, 2005.
Lewis, Thomas T., ed. U.S. Supreme Court. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2007.