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Parties Involved:
Duane McKinney
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 22, 2013 Decided December 17, 2013

No. 12-3110

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

DUANE MCKINNEY,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:07-cr-00113-1)

Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant.

Gilead I. Light, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause 

for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen 

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Virginia 

Cheatham, and Colleen Kennedy, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

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TATEL, Circuit Judge: Appellant challenges the district 

court’s finding that he was not suffering from a severe mental 

illness when he represented himself at trial nearly six years 

ago. Finding no clear error, we affirm.

I.

In July 2007, a grand jury indicted appellant Duane 

McKinney on one count of conspiracy, four counts of mail 

fraud, two counts of wire fraud, three counts of unlawful 

monetary transactions, and four counts of first degree theft 

after he allegedly engaged in an elaborate scheme to first 

“obtain title to properties through forged deeds” and then “sell 

the property, thus gaining in excess of $770,000.”

Superseding Indictment 4. After representing himself for three 

of the ten days of trial, McKinney moved for a mental 

competency exam, arguing that he suffered from bipolar 

disorder, chronic anxiety, and insomnia, and that he was 

taking medication that he claimed induced fatigue and 

memory loss. See Trial Tr. 2–4 (Jan. 28, 2008). Although 

suspicious that McKinney’s claim of mental incompetence 

represented a “last minute” attempt to “circumvent” the trial,

id. at 9, the district court worried that McKinney had 

displayed “red flag[s]” that gave the court “concern” that he 

was “somebody just so mentally deranged that they just don’t 

understand, despite the mountain of evidence, that what they 

did is wrong,” Trial Tr. 13–14 (Jan. 29, 2008). After an 

overnight competency screening proved inconclusive, the 

court ordered a “full mental health evaluation” at the Federal 

Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina, asking 

medical personnel there to “determine (1) whether the 

defendant is mentally competent to stand trial or plead guilty; 

and (2) whether the defendant was mentally competent to 

waive his right to counsel and conduct his own defense.” 

Order (Jan. 30, 2008). The Butner psychologist concluded 

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that although McKinney met the diagnostic criteria for 

Antisocial Personality Disorder, he exhibited no signs of 

psychosis at the time he moved to proceed pro se. On the 

specific question of McKinney’s competency to waive his 

right to counsel and represent himself, the psychologist found 

“no evidence of a severe mental illness or of an individual 

who was unable to function in a rational, reasonable manner,” 

and no evidence that “McKinney did not understand the 

potential limitations of him acting as his own attorney.” 

Butner Forensic Report 10.

At times assisted by court-appointed standby counsel, 

McKinney represented himself for most of the remaining trial,

and the jury convicted him on eleven of the fourteen counts.

McKinney then moved for a new trial, claiming that the court 

should have appointed counsel notwithstanding his desire to 

represent himself. See Def.’s Mot. for Reconsideration 5. In 

support, he cited the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in 

Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), in which the Court 

held that “the Constitution permits States to insist upon 

representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand 

trial . . . but who still suffer from severe mental illness to the 

point where they are not competent to conduct trial 

proceedings by themselves.” Id. at 178. The district court 

denied McKinney’s motion. Although “not sure” if 

McKinney’s mental health “had something to do with” his 

“horrible” self-representation, the court was “absolutely 

certain that the result [of a new trial] would end up being the 

same” because the government’s evidence was “just so 

overwhelming.” Hearing Tr. 20–21 (Nov. 14, 2008).

McKinney appealed, and this Court remanded to the 

district court “to determine with clarity whether the defendant 

lacked the mental capacity to represent himself at trial.” 

United States v. McKinney, 373 Fed. App’x 74 (D.C. Cir. 

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2010). In accordance with Edwards’s holding that a court may 

insist on representation by counsel only in instances where a 

defendant “suffer[s] from severe mental illness to the point 

where [he is] not competent to conduct trial proceedings by 

[himself],” 554 U.S. at 178, we held that “severe mental 

illness” was a “threshold” for requiring a defendant to accept 

appointed counsel, McKinney, 373 Fed. App’x at 75. We 

therefore directed the district court to determine whether 

McKinney had a severe mental illness during his selfrepresentation, and if so, to “exercise its discretion to 

determine whether to grant [McKinney’s] motion for a new 

trial.” Id. at 76. In other words, if the district court determined 

that McKinney had been incompetent to represent himself 

during trial and that it should have insisted upon 

representation by counsel, it should “conduct a new trial, with 

[McKinney] represented by counsel.” Id. Consistent with 

Edwards, we believed that the district court was ideally 

placed to “make [a] more fine-tuned mental capacity 

decision[]” based on McKinney’s mental health evaluations 

and the court’s own observations, leaving it up to the district 

court to decide whether to “take additional evidence or allow 

briefing on the defendant’s state of mind at the relevant time.” 

Id. at 75–76 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The district court then ordered an additional mental 

health evaluation at Butner to determine whether McKinney 

was competent to represent himself at the 2008 trial. See 

Order 2 (June 13, 2011); Hearing Tr. 5, 34 (Oct. 12, 2012). In 

response, the medical staff again examined McKinney and, 

observing no symptoms of bipolar disorder during his eight 

month stay at Butner, concluded that McKinney suffered from 

no severe mental illness and had been competent to waive his 

right to counsel and represent himself during trial. See 

Hearing Tr. 34, 62 (Oct. 12, 2012). After “careful 

consideration” of this and other mental health examinations,

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and given its own observations of McKinney’s behavior, the 

district court found that McKinney suffered not from a severe 

mental illness, but from a personality disorder that gave him 

“this grandiose idea about his ability to appropriately 

represent himself in this case.” Hearing Tr. 5 (Dec. 14, 2012).

McKinney, moreover, had “devised a fairly sophisticated 

scheme to acquire the ownership, possession of others’ 

property for the purpose of materially enriching himself,” and 

had allowed his standby counsel to deliver his closing 

argument—both signs of his competency. Id. at 4–5. Finding

that McKinney “ha[d] the ability to make an informed 

decision about his desire to represent himself and that he was . 

. . competent to make that decision and to waive his right to 

counsel,” the district court denied McKinney’s motion for a 

new trial. Id. at 6.

McKinney appeals. We will uphold the district court’s 

conclusion that McKinney was competent to represent 

himself—as we would any competency determination—

“unless it is clearly arbitrary or erroneous.” United States v. 

Battle, 613 F.3d 258, 262 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

II.

Arguing that the district court erroneously found him 

competent to represent himself, McKinney relies heavily on 

the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which involved a 

defendant with schizophrenia whom the trial court found 

competent to stand trial but incompetent to represent himself.

554 U.S. at 169. As mentioned above, the Supreme Court held

that the Constitution “permits States to insist upon 

representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand 

trial . . . but who still suffer from severe mental illness to the 

point where they are not competent to conduct trial 

proceedings by themselves.” Id. at 178. While noting that a 

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“higher standard” applies to assessing the competency for 

self-representation, compared to the competency to stand trial 

or to waive counsel, 554 U.S. at 172–76, the Court expressly 

declined to adopt a “specific standard” to determine when 

exactly a defendant lacks the mental capacity to defend 

himself, id. at 178. Instead, “the trial judge, particularly one . . 

. who preside[s] over . . . competency hearings and [trial], will 

often prove best able to make more fine-tuned mental 

capacity decisions, tailored to the individualized 

circumstances of a particular defendant.” Id. at 177.

At the outset, we note that this case differs from Edwards

in an important respect: whereas Edwards decided whether 

the trial court improperly forced counsel upon a severely 

mentally ill defendant, McKinney argues that the district court 

here improperly failed to do the same. In other words, 

McKinney asks us to hold that Edwards means not just that a 

trial court may insist upon representation for defendants who, 

due to severe mental illness, are incompetent to proceed pro 

se, but that it must do so. As our earlier order made clear, 

however, a district court’s “discretion . . . to limit [a] 

defendant’s right to self-representation” is triggered only if

the court “first determine[s] whether the defendant ‘suffer[s] 

from severe mental illness to the point where [he is] not 

competent to conduct trial proceedings by [himself].’”

McKinney, 373 Fed. App’x at 75 (quoting Edwards, 554 U.S. 

at 178). As we explain below, because we see no clear error in 

the district court’s finding that McKinney failed to meet this 

“threshold” level of incompetency under Edwards, we have 

no need to determine whether “may” means “must” with 

respect to representation in the Edwards context.

McKinney contends that the district court’s competency 

finding was fundamentally flawed because it assessed his 

competency to waive his right to counsel, not his competency 

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to represent himself. In support, he points to the district 

court’s final sentence, which states, in pertinent part: “it is my 

view that [McKinney] did, in fact, have the ability to make an 

informed decision about his desire to represent himself and 

that he was, in fact, competent to make that decision and to 

waive his right to counsel.” Hearing Tr. 14 (Dec. 14, 2012)

(emphasis added). If this were all the district court had to say 

about the issue, we might agree with McKinney. As Edwards

emphasizes, “‘the competence that is required of a defendant 

seeking to waive his right to counsel is the competence to 

waive the right, not the competence to represent himself.’” 

554 U.S. at 172 (quoting Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389, 

399 (1993)). Assessing the latter—that is, “whether a 

defendant who seeks to conduct his own defense at trial is 

mentally competent to do so”—calls for a “higher standard”

under Edwards. 554 U.S. at 173, 178–79. Our earlier order 

remanding the case placed this inquiry squarely before the 

district court, and had the court gauged only McKinney’s 

competency to waive his right to counsel, not his competency 

to represent himself, another remand would be necessary.

As the government points out, however, McKinney 

“focuses on a single sentence in the trial judge’s findings and 

ignores the larger context of the ruling.” Appellee’s Br. 35

(footnote omitted). Taken as a whole, the district court’s 

actions following remand demonstrate that the court properly 

focused on the Edwards issue, addressing McKinney’s 

competency to represent himself, not just his competency to 

stand trial or to waive counsel. The district court invited 

additional briefing and ordered mental health evaluations

specifically on the Edwards issue. See Order n.1 (Mar. 18, 

2010); Order 2 (June 13, 2011) (ordering Butner 

psychologists to evaluate “whether, at the commencement of 

his trial in this case in January of 2009, Mr. McKinney . . . 

‘suffer[ed] from severe mental illness to the point where [he 

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was] not competent to conduct trial proceedings by 

[himself]’” (quoting Edwards, 554 U.S. at 178)). And in the 

end, the district court expressly found that “based upon all of 

the examinations that have been done, [McKinney] did not 

suffer from a severe mental illness.” Hearing Tr. 5 (Dec. 14, 

2012). Given this, we think it quite clear that the district court 

deemed McKinney competent to represent himself at trial.

McKinney next argues that the district court “ignored . . . 

a wealth of evidence” revealing that his mental health 

concerns “went beyond a personality disorder.” Appellant’s 

Br. 22. Specifically, McKinney points to his pre-trial 

treatment for “depression with manic features,” a diagnosis of 

“probable bipolar disorder during trial,” a post-trial “diagnosis 

of depression with psychotic features,” and Bureau of Prisons 

records showing that he was prescribed anti-psychotic 

medications following trial. Id. at 22–23; Appellant’s Reply 

Br. 5. But the mere existence of some evidence demonstrating 

that McKinney was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder 

or prescribed antipsychotic medications before or after the

trial does not suggest that the district court clearly erred in 

basing its competency finding on “all of the circumstances 

that have been presented,” including its “observations of Mr. 

McKinney, both prior to and during the course of the trial and 

subsequent to the trial and all of the examinations that have 

been done.” Hearing Tr. 6 (Dec. 14, 2012) (emphasis added).

Moreover, despite this court’s previous statement that 

additional evidence and briefing were optional, the district 

court invited supplemental briefing, ordered fresh mental 

health evaluations, and considered testimony about 

McKinney’s competency to represent himself at trial. In its 

thorough review, the district court took into account five 

expert evaluations and months of transcripts, direct 

observations, and first-hand interactions with McKinney 

during competency hearings, status conferences, and trial.

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McKinney insists that the most recent mental health 

evaluation, which found him competent to represent himself, 

was “meaningless” because it “failed to review medical 

records, school records, the presentence report, speak to 

family members and defense counsel, or review the full 

transcript of the trial.” Appellant’s Br. 23–25. But such 

defects, even assuming they exist, would hardly call into 

question the district court’s own observations or the 

remaining evaluations, none of which conclusively found 

signs of severe mental illness or incompetency to selfrepresent during trial.

Finally, McKinney argues that the district court erred by 

“[taking] the position that a personality disorder could not 

qualify as a ‘serious mental illness.’” Appellant’s Br. 29. But 

McKinney has given us no basis for deciding whether a 

personality disorder can, in a clinical sense, constitute a 

serious mental illness. Indeed, in Edwards the Supreme Court

expressly declined to define either “severe mental illness” or 

“incompetency to proceed pro se.” See 554 U.S. at 178

(refusing to adopt “a more specific standard that would deny a 

criminal defendant the right to represent himself at trial where 

the defendant cannot communicate coherently with the court 

or a jury” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In any event, 

the district court determined that McKinney’s psychological 

impairment—whatever diagnostic form it took—was 

insufficiently severe to render him incompetent to represent 

himself.

In sum, we have no reason to disturb the district court’s 

“fine-tuned” judgment that McKinney did not “suffer from 

severe mental illness to the point where [he was] not 

competent to conduct trial proceedings by [himself].”

Edwards, 554 U.S. at 178. We therefore affirm.

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So ordered.

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