The Supreme Court has incorporated (absorbed) most of the provisions
of the Bill of Rights against the states, but this was a slow starting
and gradual process. How has incorporation proceeded? What are the
various approaches Justices have propounded to address this question?
Which seemed to hold sway and why? What are the lingering issues that
continue to plague this area of law? If the Court, under the
leadership of Chief Justice Rehnquist-once a proponent of fundamental
fairness-was to reject the previously accepted incoporation elements
of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, what would be the state of
the constitutional law of the criminal justice process?