Daniel Burns v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

In this capital case, Daniel Burns appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. At the sentencing phase of his state court trial, Burns asked that the jury be instructed to draw no inference from his failure to testify. But the trial court refused to do so. On direct appeal, while the Florida Supreme Court concluded that the refusal violated Burns’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, it also determined that any error was harmless. Burns collaterally attacked the Florida Supreme Court’s harmless-error conclusion in…