Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the incorporation of the Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy.

[3] In 1935, Frank Palko, a Connecticut resident, broke into a local music store and stole a phonograph, fled on foot, and, when cornered by law enforcement, shot and killed two police officers and made his escape.

Prosecutors appealed per Connecticut law and won a new trial in which Palko was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

Applying the subjective case-by-case approach (known as selective incorporation), the Court upheld Palko's conviction on the basis that the double jeopardy appeal was not "essential to a fundamental scheme of ordered liberty."

[5] The Court eventually reversed course and overruled Palko by incorporating the protection against double jeopardy with its ruling in Benton v.