Case Citator › Benton v. Maryland

Benton v. Maryland

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
395 U.S. 784
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
433 of 433
Citing cases (total)
3,962
Treatment dates
1980–2017
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. Benton v. Maryland has been criticized. All 433 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

The two criticisms listed below concern its discussion of the concurrent sentence doctrine and possible collateral consequences; neither rejects its holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause binds the States.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

3,962 later cases cite Benton v. Maryland; 433 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Benton v. Maryland?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Criticized

  • The Second Circuit faulted Benton for leaving unexplained when an appellate court may use the concurrent sentence doctrine as a matter of discretion.

    United States v. Sada Vargas · Second Circuit · filed

    These arguments seem to undermine any basis for the “concurrent sentence” doctrine, a fact Benton v. Maryland, supra, seems to acknowledge, 395 U.S. at 790-91, 89 S.Ct. at 2060-61, noting that “[o]ne can search through [previous Supreme Court] cases, and related ones, without finding any satisfactory explanation for the concurrent sentence doctrine,” id. at 789, 89 S.Ct. at 2060. Yet, the Court ruled only that the doctrine presented no jurisdictional bar to reviewing the challenged conviction, and added that, in certain circumstances (nowhere explained in the opinion), a federal appellate court “as a matter of discretion” might decide that it is unnecessary to consider all the allegations made by a particular party.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The district court questioned Benton's reliance on speculative collateral consequences to establish a live controversy.

    Dhinsa v. Krueger · E.D.N.Y. · filed

    The Spencer Court explained that, as a general matter, the conception'of Article III standing has changed since the days of Benton v. Maryland, evolving to require concrete injuries-in-fact rather than speculative collateral consequences. ... While I need not go so far in order to decide the concurrent-sentence aspect of this case, in my view virtually none of the far-fetched hypothetical collateral consequences that have been cited in earlier cases are sufficient to satisfy the standard set out in Clapper, and these cases are no longer good law.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Does this case still carry your argument?

Describe your facts. Ezel reads Benton v. Maryland and the cases that treated it, then tells you whether it still holds for your situation, with citations.

Opens in Ezel Pro.

  • Checks the law as it stands today, not only this page
  • Cites every source it relies on, so you can verify it
  • Chat, drafting and research in one workspace