The case involved two men charged with fraud in New Jersey who claimed Fifth Amendment protection and refused to testify during their trial. The jury was told of the men's refusal to testify, and they were convicted. They appealed, arguing that the instructions to the jury violated their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Majority decision
The Supreme Court used the case to decide whether the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was valid during trials in state courts, not just in federal courts. Before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights, including the Fifth Amendment, did not apply to state courts. The Court did not reach the question of whether the defendants' Fifth Amendment rights were actually violated in the original trial. The majority opinion was delivered by Justice William Henry Moody. Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter. Moody considered both the Privileges or Immunities Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: "The general question, therefore, is whether such a law violates the Fourteenth Amendment either by abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States or by depriving persons of their life, liberty or property without due process of law."
Privileges or immunities
The court cited the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases that the language in the Fourteenth Amendment did not curtail state power. The Supreme Court decided 8-1 that the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination applied only to federal court cases.
Selective incorporation
The case provides an early explanation of the doctrine of selective incorporation: only a portion of the Bill of Rights is applied to the states by incorporation, under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause: The court concluded that exemption from self-incrimination was not necessary for a conception of due process.
Dissent
Justice Harlan was the lone dissenter, writing firstly that the Court should have decided whether the defendants' rights were actually violated before reaching the "question of vast moment, one of such transcendent importance" of whether the Fifth Amendment applied to state courts and if the Fifth Amendment applied to state courts by the Due Process Clause.
Aftermath
Upheld in 1947
The Twining decision was revisited and upheld in Adamson v. California in which the merits of Twining were of central consideration. Concurring with the majority, Justice Frankfurter wrote: However, Justice Hugo Black disagreed and attacked Twining for giving too much power to state courts. In his famous dissent to Adamson, he wrote:
Overturned in 1964
Twining was revisited once again and finally overturned in Malloy v. Hogan. In that case, the Court incorporated the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and applied it to state courts.
