Shannon v. State
| Decision Date | 30 June 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 47611,47611 |
| Citation | 335 So.2d 5 |
| Parties | John Edward SHANNON et al., Petitioners, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Writ of Certiorari to the District Court of Appeal, First District.
Louis G. Carres, Asst. Public Defender, for petitioners.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Jeanne Dawes Schwartz and Michael M. Corin, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent.
The First District Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 decision, has held that comments on petitioners' right to remain silent which were made during closing remarks to a jury by a legal intern prosecuting these cases for the state "bordered on error, but the trial court's instruction was enough to render the remarks as harmless." 320 So.2d 855, 856. That decision conflicts with our more recent decision in Bennett v. State, 316 So.2d 41 (Fla.1975), where we held that any comment on an accused's exercise of his right to remain silent is reversible error, without regard to the harmless error doctrine.
The decision of the district court is reversed on the basis of Bennett, and the case is remanded with instructions to vacate the judgment of the trial court and grant petitioners a new trial.
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Porter v. State
...remain silent is reversible error without regard to the harmless error doctrine. Bennett v. State, 316 So.2d 41 (Fla.1975); Shannon v. State, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976). Recently this legal principle has been extended to the point that a deprivation of due process results when a prosecutor is p......
-
State v. DiGuilio
...96 (1983), receded by implication from the per se rule of reversal explicated in Donovan v. State, 417 So.2d 674 (Fla.1982); Shannon v. State, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976); and Bennett v. State, 316 So.2d 41 DiGuilio v. State, 451 So.2d 487, 491 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, ......
-
Brown v. State, 48229
...right to remain silent is reversible error, without regard to the harmless error doctrine. We reaffirmed that position in Shannon v. State, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976), and more recently in Clark v. State, 363 So.2d 331 (Fla.1978). Bennett, however, articulated a prophylactic rule designed to ob......
-
Lee v. State
...So.2d 760 (Fla.1978) (harmless error rule not applicable to disclosure of the accused's silence at the preliminary hearing); Shannon v. State, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976); Bennett v. State, supra (harmless error rule not applicable to disclosure of the accused's silence at arrest) with Harringto......