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Adamson v. California

 
US Supreme Court: Adamson v. California
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332 U.S. 46 (1947), argued 15–16 Jan. 1947, decided 23 June 1947 by a vote of 5 to 4; Reed for the Court, Frankfurter concurring, black, Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge in dissent. Adamson reflected the intense debate over whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporates specific provisions of the Bill of Rights, thus making them applicable to state criminal proceedings. The question was whether the prosecution's calling the jury's attention to the defendant's refusal to testify violated the Fifth Amendment's ban on self‐incrimination. The majority reiterated the holding of Palko v. Connecticut (1937) that the Fourteenth Amendment “does not draw all the rights of the federal Bill of Rights under its protection,” but incorporates only those that are so fundamental that they are “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” (p. 54). It upheld the conviction because the prosecutor's comments did not result in an “unfair trial.”

Justice Hugo Black argued in dissent that the Due Process Clause should be read to guarantee that “no state could deprive its citizens of the privileges and protections of the Bill of Rights” and therefore argued that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates “the full protection of the Fifth Amendment's provision against compelling evidence from an accused to convict him of a crime” (p. 75). The Court has never adopted Black's “total incorporation” approach. It has, however, incorporated nearly all the individual components of the Bill of Rights under a doctrine called “selective incorporation.” Thus, in Griffin v. California (1965) the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment does not permit state prosecutors to call the jury's attention to a defendant's failure to testify.

See also Due Process, Procedural; Incorporation Doctrine.

— Thomas Y. Davies

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Wikipedia: Adamson v. California
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Adamson v. Cali

Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 15–16, 1947
Decided June 23, 1947
Full case name Adamson v. People of the State of California
Citations 332 U.S. 46 (more)
67 S. Ct. 1672; 91 L. Ed. 1903; 1947 U.S. LEXIS 2876; 171 A.L.R. 1223
Prior history On appeal from the Supreme Court of California. 27 Cal.2d 478, 165 P.2d 3
Subsequent history As amended. Rehearing denied by Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 784, 68 S. Ct. 27, 92 L. Ed. 367, 1947 U.S. LEXIS 1986 (1947)
Holding
The Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause did not extend to defendants a Fifth Amendment right not to bear witness against themselves in state courts.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson
Case opinions
Majority Reed, joined by Vinson, Jackson, Burton
Concurrence Frankfurter
Dissent Black, joined by Douglas
Dissent Murphy, joined by Rutledge
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. V, XIV
Overruled by
In part by cases such as Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964) Benton v. Maryland 395 U.S. 784 (1969)

Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947) was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the incorporation of the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Background

In Adamson v. California, Admiral Dewey Adamson was charged with first-degree murder but chose not to testify on his own behalf because he knew the prosecutor would impeach him with questions about his prior criminal record. The prosecutor then argued that this refusal to testify could be seen as an admission of guilt under a California statute that allowed the jury to infer guilt in such cases. On appeal, however, Adamson’s attorney Morris Lavine argued that Adamson’s freedom against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment had been violated. He argued that because the prosecutor had drawn attention to Adamson’s refusal to testify, Adamson’s freedom against self-incrimination had been violated.

In the majority opinion written by Justice Stanley Reed, the Supreme Court found that while Adamson’s rights may have been violated had the case been tried in federal court, the rights guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment did not extend to state courts based on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also found that while the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed all rights under the first ten amendments to people under the federal government, it did not guarantee all of these rights to defendants under the individual state governments. While some of these rights held in states, the Court felt that the Fourteenth Amendment could not and was not intended to apply all of these rights to states without limitations.

Justice Hugo Black, however, had strong convictions against this decision and wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion,in which he argued for total incorporation of the Bill of Rights by the states, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment should be read as guaranteeing that “no state could deprive its citizens of the privileges and protections of the Bill of Rights.” Black believed that the framers of the Constitution had intended for the Bill of Rights to apply to all citizens and advocated applying all of the Bill of Rights to the states. In his opinion, he wrote:

“ If the choice must be between the selective process of [ Palko v. Connecticut ] applying some of the Bill of Rights to the States or the Twining rule applying none of them, I would choose the Palko selective process. But rather than accept either of these choices, I would follow what I believe was the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment- to extend to all of the people of the nation the complete protection of the Bill of Rights. To hold that this Court can determine what, if any, provisions, of the Bill of Rights will be enforced, and if so to what degree, is to frustrate the great design of a written Constitution. ”

Justice William O. Douglas joined Black's dissenting opinion. Justices Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge also agreed with Black that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the rights listed in the Bill of Rights (via the Privileges or Immunities Clause), but Murphy and Rutledge also argued that other fundamental "procedural" rights apply against the states (via the Due Process Clause).

The Court eventually reversed itself on the issue in later cases, and today the protections of the Fifth Amendment (except the grand jury clause) apply to the states as well as the federal government. However, the Court has applied these protections via the Due Process Clause instead of (as Black would have) via the Privileges or Immunities Clause.

See also

External links


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