Frank Palko was charged with a first degree murder in 1935, after he broke in a store to steal a phonograph, and when he was escaping the scene he shot and killed two police officers. But he was not sentenced for the charge he was taken in to court, instead he was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentence to life in prison. He was then taken to a new trial in which he was found guilty of first degree murder, and was sentenced to the death penalty.
Palko appealed this decision, as he argued that the Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy applied to State governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court decided that Palko's appeal did not have place, and he was executed on April 12th, 1938.