Benton v. Maryland

Overturned legal precedent set in Palko v. Connecticut and ruled that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, through application of the Fourteenth Amendment, does constrain the actions of state 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 of that year, and was sentenced to ten years in prison for his offense. Shortly after 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 be served concurrently. Benton then appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, claiming that his second trial violated his Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy, or being tried twice for the same offense. The Court of Special Appeals rejected Benton's appeal in 1967, and the Maryland Court of 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 to be decided in the case. The Court also added a third question to be adjudicated upon reargument: whether concurrent sentencing was still legally valid in light of recent court decisions.

Benton's case was reargued on 24 March 1969. First, the Court considered the matter 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 Amendment guarantees of equal protection under the law. In the 1937 case of Palko v. Connecticut the Court had ruled that federal double jeopardy standards did 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 trial was 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 the Sixth 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 was clear 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 not faced double jeopardy, it had not considered what had become relevant matters in light of the Court's ruling that double jeopardy had in fact occurred. Furthermore, Benton now contended that certain evidence presented in his second larceny 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.