ABSTRACT
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 US 319, was an eight-one decision that became one of the landmark cases involving the application of provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. Citing various errors in the trial, the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial. The Court had incorporated against the states the constitutional protections for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, right of peaceable assembly, and right to counsel in capital cases. Benjamin Cardozo decided that the provision against double jeopardy was not fundamental, especially in a case such as Palko's in which the government was not using a second trial to wear down a defendant but simply to redress errors in the first trial. Frank Palko had been tried for murder in the first degree but convicted by a jury of second-degree murder, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.
