Twining v. New Jersey

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Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 (1908), was a 1908 U.S. Supreme Court case. The case involved two men charged with fraud in New Jersey who claimed 5th Amendment protection and refused to testify during their trial. The jury was told of the men's failure to testify, and the men were convicted. They appealed, arguing that the instructions to the jury violated their 5th Amendment privilege to not incriminate themselves.

The Supreme Court used the case to decide if the 5th Amendment right was valid during trials by state courts and not just federal courts. Before the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the Bill of Rights, including the 5th Amendment, did not apply to state courts. The court cited the decision in the Slaughter-house cases that the language in the 14th Amendment, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...", did not curtail state power. The Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 that the 5th Amendment rights to not self incriminate applied only to federal court cases. John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter.

The Supreme Court overruled this decision in 1964 in Malloy v. Hogan.