Case Title: Ex parte Tracy Jones-Dawson

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2023-03-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
Rel: March 10, 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern 
Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 
300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other 
errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA 
 
OCTOBER TERM, 2022-2023 
 
_________________________ 
 
 
SC-2023-0026 
_________________________ 
 
Ex parte Reginald Renard Macon 
 
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF 
CRIMINAL APPEALS  
 
(In re: Reginald Renard Macon 
  
v.  
 
State of Alabama) 
 
 (Houston Circuit Court: CC-93-1043.61;  
Court of Criminal Appeals: CR-21-0474) 
 
 
 
MITCHELL, Justice. 
SC-2023-0026 
2 
 
 
WRIT DENIED.  NO OPINION. 
 
Parker, C.J., and Shaw, Bryan, and Sellers, JJ., concur. 
Mitchell, J., concurs specially, with opinion. 
 
 
 
SC-2023-0026 
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MITCHELL, Justice (concurring specially). 
 
I concur in the decision to deny Reginald Renard Macon's petition 
for a writ of certiorari because every theory asserted in his petition is 
either meritless, unpreserved, noncompliant with Rule 39(a), Ala. R. App. 
P., or some combination of the three.  I write specially to address a 
separate question implicated by the decision below.  
By way of background, Macon is a serial felon who was most 
recently indicted for first-degree rape and first-degree theft of property.  
Macon opted not to go to trial on these charges and instead pleaded guilty 
to first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree theft of property.  Following 
those pleas, he was sentenced to concurrent terms of life imprisonment 
under the Habitual Felony Offender Act ("the HFOA"), § 13A-5-9, Ala. 
Code 1975.  Macon did not file a direct appeal challenging his convictions 
or sentences, but he has since filed three petitions for collateral 
postconviction relief under Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., including the 
petition at issue here (his most recent). 
One of the many claims that Macon made in his most recent Rule 
32 petition was that his sexual-abuse sentence violated double-jeopardy 
principles.  That was so, Macon argued, because the original trial court 
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had illegitimately enhanced that sentence under the HFOA.  The 
Houston Circuit Court rejected that claim -- along with all the other 
claims raised in Macon's Rule 32 petition -- and Macon did not mention 
it again when he appealed the circuit court's judgment.  Instead, he chose 
to focus his appeal on his other claims.      
In affirming the judgment of the circuit court, the Court of Criminal 
Appeals correctly determined that, by abandoning his double-jeopardy 
claim, Macon had failed to preserve it for appellate review.  Macon v. 
State (No. CR-21-0474, Dec. 9, 2022), ___ So. 3d ___ (Ala. Crim. App. 
2022) (table).  Nonetheless, "out of an abundance of caution," the Court 
of Criminal Appeals proceeded to explain in its unpublished 
memorandum why that claim failed on the merits.  It felt the need to do 
so, it said, because there is some authority suggesting that the type of 
double-jeopardy violation alleged by Macon is jurisdictional in nature 
and "thus cannot be waived."  In other words, the Court of Criminal 
Appeals seems to have assumed that if jurisdictional defects in a sentence 
are nonwaivable on direct review, they must be nonwaivable on collateral 
review (such as in a Rule 32 proceeding) as well.   
SC-2023-0026 
5 
 
In my view, that assumption is unwarranted.  The general rule is 
that once a judgment becomes final on direct review it is entitled to full 
res judicata effect, even if it rested on a jurisdictional defect.  See 20 
Charles Alan Wright & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure:  
Federal Practice Deskbook § 17 (2d ed. 2011) (explaining the general rule 
that "a party who does not actually contest [a court's] jurisdiction will be 
bound by [its] judgment"); Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 12 (Am. 
L. Inst. 1982) (noting that, unless a recognized exception provides 
otherwise, "[w]hen a court has rendered a judgment in a contested action, 
the judgment precludes the parties from litigating the question of the 
court's subject matter jurisdiction in subsequent litigation").  While there 
are certain narrow exceptions to the finality-of-judgment rule, those 
exceptions are just that -- narrow.  Rule 32.1 provides one such exception 
when it permits a petitioner to collaterally challenge his final conviction 
or sentence by arguing that the issuing court lacked jurisdiction.  But, so 
far as I can tell, nothing in Rule 32 (or any of our other procedural rules) 
requires a court to entertain collateral attacks on a final judgment based 
on potential defects in the original proceedings -- even jurisdictional ones 
-- that the petitioner has not adequately presented and preserved in the 
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collateral challenge.  See Lee v. State, 44 So. 3d 1145, 1149-50 (Ala. Crim. 
App. 2009) (noting that the rule that appellate courts "will not search out 
errors which have not been properly preserved" applies in Rule 32 
proceedings); Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.10(a) (stating that existing rules of 
appellate procedure govern Rule 32 petitions).  Accordingly, the Court of 
Criminal Appeals was under no obligation to entertain the merits (or lack 
thereof) of Macon's unpreserved double-jeopardy claim.   
With that clarification in mind, I concur in the decision to deny the 
writ.