Meanings
plural Palko tests
- USlawA judicial test as to whether a US state is bound by the United States Bill of Rights in relation to a specific right claimed by the plaintiff, hinging on whether the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution override the immunity which ordinarily applies to states; specifically, the right in question must be "of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty" and "deeply rooted in [American] history and tradition" in order to qualify.
The Palko test was stated and has heretofore been taken as a definition (of questionable contemporary vitality) of due process generally, not of privacy.
1994, Jules L. Coleman, Anthony James Sebok, Constitutional Law and Its Interpretation, page 2312 more examples
Moreover, the court determined that, even under a Palko test, the right to privacy in Montana includes consensual same-sex relations when it stated: […]
2000, Kentucky Law Journal, volume 89, page 1176If it did, however, then why did the 1997 Glucksberg case invoke the earlier Palko test from 1937, conjoined with the Moore test from 1977, instead of the Duncan test from 1968?
2009, New Mexico Law Review, volume 39, numbers 1-2, page 213
Origin
From the case of Palko v. Connecticut (1937), after Frank Palko, a Connecticut resident charged with murder.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Palko test. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palko%20test
“Palko test.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palko%20test. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Palko test,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palko%20test.
Source: Palko test on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.