Palko test

English

Etymology

From the 1937 case of Palko v. Connecticut.

Noun

Palko test (plural Palko tests)

1. (law, US) A judicial test as to whether a US state is bound by the United States Bill of Rights in relation to a specific right claimed by the plaintiff, hinging on whether the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution override the immunity which ordinarily applies to states; specifically, the right in question must be "of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty" and "deeply rooted in [American] history and tradition" in order to qualify.
   • 1994, Jules L. Coleman, Anthony James Sebok, Constitutional Law and Its Interpretation, page 231:

     The Palko test was stated and has heretofore been taken as a definition (of questionable contemporary vitality) of due process generally, not of privacy.

   • 2000, Kentucky Law Journal, volume 89, page 1176:

     Moreover, the court determined that, even under a Palko test, the right to privacy in Montana includes consensual same-sex relations when it stated: […]

   • 2009, New Mexico Law Review, volume 39, numbers 1-2, page 213:

     If it did, however, then why did the 1997 Glucksberg case invoke the earlier Palko test from 1937, conjoined with the Moore test from 1977, instead of the Duncan test from 1968?