Palko v. Connecticut 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937) Palko killed two policemen while fleeing the scene of a robbery. He was arrested and charged with first degree murder, under Connecticut State law. At trial, the judge improperly excluded some of the prosecution's evidence. The Trial Court found Palko guilty of the lesser offence of second degree murder, and sentenced him to life in prison. The prosecution appealed and won a new trial. This was allowed under Connecticut State law, but would have been a violation of the 5th Amendment under Federal law because it would be trying him twice for the same crime. Aka double jeopardy. It was allowed under Connecticut State law because they took the position that the goal was an error-free trial, and if errors had been made, the case should be retried, no matter who benefited from those errors. At the new trial, Palko was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko appealed. Palko argued that the second trial was unconstitutional. The 5th Amendment protects a defendant against double jeopardy. Palko argued that the 14th Amendment makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the States. The US Supreme Court upheld the conviction. The US Supreme Court found that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment only protected those rights that were "essential to a fundamental scheme of ordered liberty," In this case, the Court found that the double jeopardy protection was not "essential to a fundamental scheme of ordered liberty." Basically, the Court asked if it was possible to have a trial that could been considered fundamentally fair under the Connecticut standard. They decided it did. The Court felt that as long as the trial was fair, it didn't matter if it was identical to the Federal standard. The case applied what was known as the fundamental fairness approach for incorporating the Bill of Rights into State law. The other approaches are the total incorporation approach and the selective incorporation approach. This case was later overruled by Benton v. Maryland (395 U.S. 784 (1969)).