Court's Decision
Justice Benjamin Cardozo held that the Due Process Clause protected only those rights that were "of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty" and that the court should therefore gradually incorporate the Bill of Rights onto the States as justiciable violations arose, based on whether the infringed right met that test.
Applying this subjective case-by-case approach (known as selective incorporation), the Court upheld Palko's conviction on the basis that the Double Jeopardy appeal was not "essential to a fundamental scheme of ordered liberty." The case was decided by an 8-1 vote. Justice Pierce Butler was the lone dissenter, but he did not author a dissenting opinion.
Palko was executed in Connecticut's electric chair on April 12, 1938.
Read more about this topic: Palko V. Connecticut
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