Benton v. Maryland

Petitioner
John Dalmer Benton
Respondent
State of Maryland
Petitioner's Claim
That his conviction and sentencing for burglary and larceny, accomplished intwo state court trials after the initial verdict was thrown out due to jury invalidation, was in violation of his constitutional protection from double jeopardy (being tried more than once for the same offense).
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
M. Michael Cramer
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Francis B. Burch
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall (writing for the Court), Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
23 June 1969
Decision
That the second trial did violate Benton's right to freedom from double jeopardy, and that portions of his second conviction could not stand.
Significance
Overturned legal precedent set in Palko v. Connecticut and ruled thatthe double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, through application of the Fourteenth Amendment, does constrain the actions ofstate courts.
John Benton faced trial for burglary and larceny in Maryland state court in 1965. He was convicted of burglary but found innocent of larceny in August ofthat year, and was sentenced to ten years in prison for his offense. Shortlyafter his conviction the Maryland Court of Appeals struck down a state law requiring jurors to swear to their belief in the existence God, and Benton's conviction was remanded due to improper jury selection. The state granted Benton the opportunity to have a new indictment and trial, which he accepted. At Benton's second trial he was found guilty of both burglary and larceny, and sentenced to 15 years in prison for burglary and five years for larceny, to beserved concurrently. Benton then appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, claiming that his second trial violated his Fifth Amendment protectionagainst double jeopardy, or being tried twice for the same offense. The Court of Special Appeals rejected Benton's appeal in 1967, and the Maryland Courtof Appeals refused to review the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court took Benton's case on certiorari in 1968, but stipulated that the Court would limit its consideration to two issues: whether"the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment is applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment," and whether Benton was put in double jeopardy in his second trial. After hearing opening arguments, the Court rescheduled the case for the following year, as it did not wish the legal implications of concurrent sentencing to complicate its decision of the two issues tobe decided in the case. The Court also added a third question to be adjudicated upon reargument: whether concurrent sentencing was still legally valid inlight of recent court decisions.
Benton's case was reargued on 24 March 1969. First, the Court considered thematter of concurrent sentencing, ruling that such sentences provide "no jurisdictional bar to consideration of challenges to multiple convictions." Attention then turned to the question of the applicability of the Fifth Amendment prohibition against double jeopardy to state trials given Fourteenth Amendmentguarantees of equal protection under the law. In the 1937 case of Palko v. Connecticut the Court had ruled that federal double jeopardy standardsdid not apply to state courts, and this view had prevailed ever since. Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court in the Benton case, announced a change in view:

this Court has "increasingly looked to the specific guarantees of the [Bill of Rights] to determine whether a state criminal trialwas conducted with due process of law" . . . [and has] rejected the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the States only a "watered down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights."

The Court had also recently found that the Fourteenth Amendment did make theSixth Amendment right to a trial by jury applicable to all states in Duncan v. Louisiana. In light of this recent trend in Court decisions, it wasclear that the Fourteenth Amendment did extend Fifth Amendment protection from double jeopardy in supersession of state laws. Finally, the Court ruled that, since the Maryland Court of Special Appeals had ruled that Benton had notfaced double jeopardy, it had not considered what had become relevant mattersin light of the Court's ruling that double jeopardy had in fact occurred. Furthermore, Benton now contended that certain evidence presented in his secondlarceny trial, which the Court ruled should never have occurred, may have prejudiced the jury with regard to his second burglary trial. As such, the Court remanded the case to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals for consideration of Benton's evidentiary claims. His larceny conviction was reversed.
Benton v. Maryland represents an extension of Fifth Amendment rights,particularly strengthening the position of the individual faced by state prosecution. By citing the Fourteenth Amendment as a means for applying Fifth Amendment protections in supersession of state law, the Court ensured national review of state statutes and procedures affecting the civil rights of individuals.
Related Cases

• Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).
  
• Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).

Double Jeopardy
Double jeopardy, being subjected to trial for the same offense twice, is barred by the Fifth Amendment. Until Benton v. Maryland, this prohibitionapplied only to the federal government, not to the states. Under the principle of "dual sovereignty" (the separation of state and federal spheres of authority), however, there is no constitutional prohibition of federal prosecutionfor an offense after state prosecution for that offense; however, many states have laws barring state prosecution for an offense after federal prosecution has taken place.
An issue in double jeopardy is at what point jeopardy "attaches," that is, when a person may be considered to be in jeopardy. In jury trials, jeopardy attaches with the swearing in of the jury; in trials by judge it attaches with the swearing in of the first witness. The other major issue in double jeopardyis what actually constitutes double jeopardy, since a single incident may result in multiple charges against a person, and prosecutors have great discretion as to what charges they bring in a particular matter.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Minneapolis, MN: West, 1998.