Raymond Weldon Marston v. State of Florida

Summary

The court held that the prosecutor's repeated comments during voir dire about Marston's right to remain silent were improper constitutional error because they demeaned that right and invited jurors to consider his silence. The court further held that the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt despite the trial court's later jury instructions and the strength of the State's evidence, and it quashed the Second District's decision while approving the conflicting decision. Justice Canady, dissenting and joined by Chief Justice Polston, would have discharged the case for lack of conflict jurisdiction because the two decisions involved fact-specific harmless-error determinations.