Court Opinion

ID: 9754195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:49:37.700028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:50.500632
License: Public Domain

*383Barnes, J.,
concurring:
I fully concur in the result in this case, in the analysis of the various cases and in the reasoning of the majority in its excellent opinion, if it be assumed, arguendo, that the provisions, of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in regard to self incrimination and of the Sixth Amendment in regard to the assistance of counsel are applicable to the States, through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As I am firmly of the opinion that selected provisions of the first eight amendments to the federal Constitution are not applicable to the States through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that this new and unexplained theory of federal constitutional law is destructive of the proper federalism upon which the government of this country rests, I wish to reiterate my opinion in this regard. I have given my reasons for my opinion in prior dissenting or concurring opinions in State v. Giles, 245 Md. 660, 667-69, 229 A. 2d 97, 101-02 (1967) ; Truitt v. Board of Public Works, 243 Md. 375, 411-13, 221 A. 2d 370, 392-93 (1966); State v. Barger, 242 Md. 616, 628, 639-44, 220 A. 2d 304, 311, 317-20 (1966) and these reasons need not be repeated here.
In Truitt v. Board of Public Works, supra, I expressed the hope “that the [majority of the] Supreme Court * * * would return to more orthodox constitutional doctrine” and thus avoid corrective action by Congress which may be undertaken under Article III, Section 2 of the federal Constitution or under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment as outlined in my dissenting opinion in State v. Giles, supra. I again express this hope. As I see it, there is yet time for the majority of the Supreme Court to return to correct constitutional doctrine, but the hour grows late.