Adamson v. California was a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a California rule allowing judges and prosecutors to comment on a criminal defendant’s refusal to testify. By a 5-4 vote, the Court held that the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination did not bind state courts through the Fourteenth Amendment, leaving states free to set their own trial procedures on this point.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 462Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment: Selective Incorporation
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
Admiral Dewey Adamson was tried in California for first-degree murder and burglary. He chose not to take the stand. At the time, the California Constitution and California Penal Code Section 1323 permitted both the judge and the prosecution to comment on that silence in front of the jury.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46
The prosecutor told the jury that an innocent person would have taken the stand to explain the incriminating evidence. Adamson was convicted and sentenced to death. He appealed, arguing that the state had punished him for exercising a right protected by the federal Constitution.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46
The Constitutional Question
The Fifth Amendment says no person shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself.3Congress.gov. Amendment V That rule governs federal trials. The question in Adamson was whether it also reached state trials.
Adamson’s lawyers argued it did, through two parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. They pointed first to the Privileges or Immunities Clause, saying freedom from self-incrimination was a right of national citizenship. They also invoked the Due Process Clause, which bars states from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.4Congress.gov. Amendment XIV Allowing the jury to treat silence as evidence of guilt, they argued, effectively forced a defendant to testify.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46
The Majority Opinion
Justice Stanley Forman Reed wrote for a five-justice majority upholding the conviction. The Court rejected both Fourteenth Amendment arguments. The Privileges or Immunities Clause, it said, covers only a narrow set of rights tied to national citizenship, and the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination protection was not among them.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 465Congress.gov. Privileges or Immunities Clause
On due process, the Court applied the ordered-liberty test then in use: a Bill of Rights protection applied to the states only if it was fundamental to a fair justice system.2Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment: Selective Incorporation Measured against that standard, California’s comment rule did not deprive Adamson of a fair trial. States, the majority concluded, retained room to set their own rules of evidence and procedure.1Justia. Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46
Justice Black’s Dissent
Justice Hugo Black wrote the principal dissent and used it to press a broader theory known as total incorporation. Drawing on the historical record of the Fourteenth Amendment’s drafting, Black argued that its framers meant to apply the entire Bill of Rights against the states.2Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment: Selective Incorporation
He also attacked the majority’s method. Letting judges pick which rights were fundamental, case by case, gave the Court too much discretion over individual liberties. Black’s dissent became a reference point for later arguments that gradually extended federal protections into state criminal procedure through the Fourteenth Amendment.2Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment: Selective Incorporation