Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1937

Palko v. Connecticut

302 U.S. 319 | 58 S. Ct. 149 | 82 L. Ed. 288 | 1937 U.S. LEXIS 549

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that double-jeopardy protection was not then a fundamental right incorporated against the States, so Connecticut could obtain a new trial after successfully appealing substantial legal errors in Palko's first trial.

Background

Frank Palko was indicted in Connecticut for first-degree murder. At his first trial, the jury convicted him of second-degree murder, and he received a life sentence.

Under a Connecticut statute allowing the State, with the trial judge's permission, to appeal legal rulings in criminal cases, the State appealed. The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors found substantial legal errors unfavorable to the prosecution, including the exclusion of confession evidence and errors in the jury instructions, reversed the conviction, and ordered a new trial.

At the second trial, Palko argued that retrying him after the State's appeal subjected him to double jeopardy in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The objection was rejected. The jury then convicted Palko of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death. The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors affirmed, and Palko appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause makes the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause fully applicable to the States.

Holding

No. The Fourteenth Amendment does not automatically make every protection in the federal Bill of Rights applicable against the States.

Reasoning

Justice Cardozo rejected Palko's premise that every act forbidden to the federal government by the first eight amendments is also forbidden to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause, by its own terms, directly restrains the federal government; the question was instead whether the particular state practice denied due process.

The Court drew on its earlier due-process decisions to show that some Bill of Rights guarantees had not been imposed on the States. States could proceed by information rather than grand-jury indictment, could modify or abolish jury trials, and were not bound by a federal constitutional privilege against compelled self-incrimination. Thus, incorporation was not automatic or all-or-nothing.

The governing principle was whether a claimed right is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty: a principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of the American people that neither liberty nor justice would exist if it were sacrificed. The Court contrasted rights such as freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceful assembly, and meaningful access to counsel in a capital case, which it regarded as fundamental, with procedural guarantees that it viewed as important but not indispensable in every legal system.

Issue #2

Whether Connecticut's retrial of Palko after the State successfully appealed his second-degree-murder conviction denied him due process of law.

Holding

No. A State may authorize a prosecution appeal and a retrial to correct substantial legal error without violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.

Reasoning

The Court assumed, without deciding the precise scope of the Fifth Amendment in federal cases, that a government-initiated retrial might constitute double jeopardy under the federal rule described in Kepner v. United States. That assumption did not resolve the Fourteenth Amendment question, because due process protects only those rights that are fundamental to ordered liberty.

The Connecticut procedure did not permit the State to harass Palko through repeated prosecutions after a fair and error-free trial. It allowed the State, with the trial judge's permission, to seek review of substantial legal errors and continue the same case until there had been one trial free from prejudicial legal error.

Cardozo described the State's right as reciprocal to the defendant's familiar right to obtain a new trial when error has prejudiced the defense. In the Court's view, allowing the State a similarly limited opportunity to correct serious errors was neither cruel nor unduly vexatious and was not a hardship so acute and shocking that a system of ordered liberty could not tolerate it.

Issue #3

Whether the Connecticut retrial violated Palko's privileges or immunities as a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Holding

No. The Privileges or Immunities Clause did not provide Palko an additional basis for relief.

Reasoning

The Court disposed of Palko's privileges-or-immunities argument by relying on Maxwell v. Dow. Having concluded that the asserted protection was not required of the States through due process, the Court found no separate federal privilege or immunity that invalidated Connecticut's statute.

Dissents

Justice Butler

Reasoning

Justice Butler dissented from the judgment. The reported opinion contains no separate dissenting opinion or explanation of his reasoning, so it does not identify the particular constitutional analysis on which he disagreed with the Court.