State of Florida v. Carl Lewis Burns

Summary

The court quashed the First District’s decision vacating Burns’s sentence and remanded for reconsideration in light of the court’s intervening decision concerning a sentencing court’s consideration of a defendant’s failure to accept responsibility. The court held that the relevant principles are not limited to statements made during allocution and may extend to a defendant’s false or responsibility-denying statements made during trial. The opinion also disapproved as dicta the prior broad statement that using a protestation of innocence against a defendant necessarily violates due process.