The defendants were not happy about this. They considered the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the state proposals when the Constitution was being written, and how the original Congress had viewed the privilege, and decided that the privilege was not a fundamental part of due process, and so they ruled that the state was not bound. By 1937, freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion had been found to be incorporated in due process, and so the states were bound to respect those. The state had a statute that let the state appeal in criminal cases, and Palko was not too pleased with this. Justice Cardoza wrote the majority opinion.
Due process applies to the states.
Justice Black's view is that the 14th is meant to apply the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights to the states, no more and no less. Justice Black was never able to get a majority of the Court to go along with this theory, however. The Warren court was more favorable toward applying the Bill of Rights to the states. If it could not, then that right was incorparated from the Bill of Rights by the 14th. That's basically where we stand today, I believe.