Lonnie Dawson v. Macon SP Warden

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: February 4, 2026
• Docket: 23-13226
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 1 of 6

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-13226 ____________________

LONNIE DAWSON, Petitioner-Appellant, versus

MACON SP WARDEN, Respondent-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-04838-AT ____________________

Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and WILSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: The district court in this habeas corpus case liberally read the petition filed by Lonnie Dawson, who was proceeding pro se, to include a substantive claim that he was incompetent during the direct appeal process. See D.E. 26 at 6. The court, however, did not USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 2 of 6

2 Opinion of the Court 23-13226

reach the merits of this claim because it concluded that the claim had been procedurally defaulted, and it denied relief on the other claims presented. See id. at 8. The court granted Mr. Dawson a certificate of appealability “with respect to his claim that he was incompetent to appeal and his assertion that the claim cannot be procedurally defaulted.” Id. at 8–9. Following oral argument and a review of the record, we con- clude that Mr. Dawson’s claim of incompetency during the direct appeal process is not subject to procedural default. We do not reach the merits of this incompetency claim and remand for the district court to decide in the first instance whether, including un- der Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), there is a constitutional right to be competent during the direct appeal process that Mr. Dawson can assert and receive the benefit of in federal habeas corpus pro- ceedings.1 We have held, both before and after the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), that procedural default “does not operate to preclude a defendant to stand who failed to request a competency hearing at trial or pur- sue a claim of incompetency on direct appeal from contesting his competency to stand trial and be sentenced through post-convic- tion proceedings.” Pardo v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 587 F.3d 1093, 1101 n.3 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Adams v. Wainwright, 764 F.2d 1356, 1359 (11th Cir. 1985), abrogated on other grounds as recognized

1 We thank Mr. Dawson’s court-appointed counsel on this appeal, Devin S.

Anderson and Mark C. Gillespie of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, for their service. USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 3 of 6

23-13226 Opinion of the Court 3

in Granda v. United States, 990 F.3d 1272, 1294 (11th Cir. 2021)). The primary rationale for this rule is that “it is contradictory to argue that a defendant may be incompetent, and yet knowingly or intel- ligently ‘waive’ his right to have the court determine his capacity to stand trial.” � Adams, 764 F.2d at 1359 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). If there is a constitutional right to be competent during the direct appeal process—an issue we do not decide today—it seems to us that this substantive right is also not subject to procedural de- fault. It would be difficult if not impossible to say that a defendant who is incompetent during his direct appeal process can knowingly and intelligently waive the right to have a court determine his ca- pacity to participate and assist in the appellate proceedings. Thus, Mr. Dawson’s claim (as liberally read by the district court and to the extent such a substantive right exists) was not procedurally de- faulted. We vacate the district court’s denial of Mr. Dawson’s claim of incompetency during the direct appeal process on procedural default grounds and remand for further proceedings as to that claim.2

2 For the benefit of the district court and the parties on remand, we note the

following cases discussing whether there is a constitutional right to be compe- tent during direct appeal or post-conviction proceedings: Ryan v. Gonzales, 568 U.S. 57, 64–70 (2013); Holmes v. Buss, 506 F.3d 576, 577–79 (7th Cir. 2007); Ro- han ex rel. Gates v. Woodford, 334 F.3d 803, 812–13 (9th Cir. 2003), abrogated by Ryan, 568 U.S. at 69–70; Hill v. Mitchell, No. 1:98-cv-452, 2013 WL 1345831, at *75–76 (S.D. Ohio 2013), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 842 F.3d USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 4 of 6

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VACATED AND REMANDED.

910 (6th Cir. 2016); White v. Ryan, No. CV-08-08139-PCT-SPL, 2015 WL 4173343, at *19–*21 (D. Ariz. 2015), rev’d and remanded, 895 F.3d 641 (9th Cir. 2018); People v. Newton, 394 N.W.2d 463, 466 (Mich. App. 1986), vacated on other grounds, 399 N.W.2d 28 (Mich. 1987); State v. White, 815 P.2d 869, 878 (Ariz. 1991), abrogated by State v. Salazar, 815 P.2d 869 (Ariz. 1991); People v. Kelly, 822 P.2d 385, 413 (Cal. 1992). USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 5 of 6

23-13226 Jordan, J., Dissenting 1

JORDAN, Circuit Judge, Dissenting: I would affirm the denial of habeas relief to Mr. Dawson. First, in my view, the district court should not have recharacterized Mr. Dawson’s habeas corpus petition to assert a stand-alone sub- stantive claim of incompetency during the direct appeal process. Second, I believe that Mr. Dawson’s asserted ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim fails on the merits. Mr. Dawson included an allegation about “insanity” within a claim asserting ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. As- suming that the district court could view Mr. Dawson’s reference to insanity to be a reference to incompetency, I don’t believe it also should have viewed the petition as including a substantive incom- petency claim. At most, based on Mr. Dawson’s petition, the court could have re-characterized the claim as one asserting ineffective assistance of appellate counsel for failing to assert that Mr. Dawson was incompetent (rather than insane) during the direct appeal pro- cess. See Clark v. Sweeney, 146 S.Ct. 410, 412 (2025) (“The Fourth Circuit transgressed the party-presentation principle by granting relief on a claim that Sweeney [the habeas petitioner] never as- serted and that the State never had the chance to address.”). Courts read pro se filings liberally, but that does not given them “license to serve as de facto counsel . . . or to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading[.]” Campbell v. Air Jamaica Ltd., 760 F.3d 1165, 1168–69 (11th Cir. 2014). USCA11 Case: 23-13226 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 02/04/2026 Page: 6 of 6

2 Jordan, J. Dissenting 23-13226

At the time of Mr. Dawson’s direct appeal there were no re- ported cases—published or unpublished—holding that there is a constitutional right to be competent during the direct appeal pro- cess. Indeed, there are no such cases even today. Under our prece- dent, counsel does not perform deficiently by “fail[ing] to antici- pate a change in the law[.]” Ritchie v. United States, 112 F. 4th 1344, 1347–48 (11th Cir. 2024). See also Spaziano v. Singletary, 36 F.3d 1028, 1039 (11th Cir. 1994) (stating that “reasonably effective representa- tion cannot and does not include a requirement to make arguments based on predictions of how the law may develop”) (internal quota- tion marks omitted). So Mr. Dawson’s appellate counsel did not ren- der ineffective assistance by failing to assert an unrecognized right on direct appeal.