Question

How has the Supreme Court influenced the process of incorporating the Bill of Rights? Explain how Palko and Duncan changed the Supreme Court’s approach to selective incorporation.

Answer 1

Sample response: Palko involved restricting incorporation of the Bill of Rights on the state level. In contrast, Duncan resulted in an expansion of incorporation when the conviction was overturned due to the lack of a jury trial.

Answer 2

The US Supreme Court was very important in influencing the process of incorporation of the Bill of Rights. The Incorporation Doctrine was created to apply the Bill of Rights to the states because prior to this doctrine the bill was only applied to Federal court cases and government.

After the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court favored the “selective incorporation”. The selective incorporation idea is that the Supreme Court will incorporate only parts of amendments, not the amendment all at once. This came to light after the cases Palko v. Connecticut case and Duncan v. Louisiana case. The Palko case the Court decided to restrict incorporation of the Bill of Rights on a state level, this way the Court decided that “double jeopardy appeal was not essential to a fundamental scheme of ordered liberty”.  The Ducan case resulted in the Court expanding incorporation, the Supreme Court incorporated the 6th Amendment and determined that state courts should respect the right to a jury trial.