Court Opinion

ID: 9407912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-10 19:00:49.680843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:40.823654
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 20-14781    Document: 44-1      Date Filed: 07/10/2023   Page: 1 of 33

                                                            [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 20-14781
                           ____________________

        JEAN-DANIEL PERKINS,
                                                     Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                                   Respondent- Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-04545-AT
                           ____________________
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        2                              Opinion of the Court                20-14781

        Before BRANCH and GRANT, Circuit Judges, and SCHLESINGER,∗
        District Judge.
        BRANCH, Circuit Judge:
                After perpetrating elaborate bank and credit card fraud,
        Petitioner Jean-Daniel Perkins “embarked upon a new scheme . . .
        to ensnarl the proceedings against him” through obstructionist and
        disruptive behaviors “so that he might avoid trial altogether.”
        United States v. Perkins, 787 F.3d 1329, 1333 (11th Cir. 2015). His
        scheme, however, did not end at trial or even when the jury issued
        its guilty verdict. Rather, it continued through sentencing. Now,
        on a motion to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255,
        Perkins advances two claims: a substantive competency due
        process claim, contending that he was not competent at the time
        of sentencing, and an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. The
        district court denied his § 2255 motion. After careful review and
        with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.
                                  I.       Factual Background
              In June 2010, a federal grand jury indicted Perkins on two
        counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, thirty counts of bank
        fraud, four counts of access device fraud, and one count of
        aggravated identity theft. These charges relate to three highly
        complex banking and credit card fraud schemes perpetrated by
        Perkins and various co-defendants.

        ∗ Honorable Harvey E. Schlesinger, United States District Judge for the Middle

        District of Florida, sitting by designation.
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        20-14781                 Opinion of the Court                             3

               During Perkins’s initial appearance, a magistrate judge
        appointed counsel to represent Perkins. After Perkins pleaded not
        guilty to all counts, his counsel moved to withdraw because he and
        Perkins had “reached a point where they [were] unable to work
        together on the case.” Counsel stated that Perkins “informed [him]
        that [Perkins was] not satisﬁed with [counsel’s] representation and
        wishe[d] for him to withdraw from the case.” The magistrate
        judge allowed counsel to withdraw and appointed a second
        attorney to represent Perkins. Despite being represented by
        counsel, Perkins ﬁled various pro se ﬁlings, which the magistrate
        judge struck as irrelevant and improper. 1
              Perkins’s second attorney also moved to withdraw,
        representing that Perkins did not want court-appointed counsel.
        The magistrate judge held a hearing and, after asking if Perkins
        wished to waive his right to counsel (to which Perkins gave a
        nonresponsive answer), the magistrate judge denied the motion.
               Counsel later ﬁled a second motion to withdraw, attaching
        an aﬃdavit from Perkins stating that he did not want the attorney
        to represent him. The district court took up the motion during the
        pretrial conference. The district court denied the motion and
        determined that Perkins’s refusal to acknowledge the court and his
        attempts to dominate the proceeding by talking over the court
        were “obviously designed to disrupt and obstruct the federal

        1 The district court later referred to these filings (and Perkins’s behavior
        generally) as “sovereign citizenship on steroids.”
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 20-14781

        proceeding.” While characterizing Perkins’s behavior as “crazy
        like a fox,” the district court concluded that Perkins’s actions were
        “deﬁnitely studied, deﬁnitely contrived, deﬁnitely manipulative. So
        [there was no] reason to send [Perkins] oﬀ for a competency
        examination.” The district court stated that
               the situation we have here [is] a person who
               essentially his whole posture is simply to obstruct. He
               will not follow the court’s directives. He believes the
               court has no power on him. When I ask[] a very
               simple question, he speaks in gibberish over and over
               and over again.
            1. Trial
                Perkins’s trial began in June 2011. On the ﬁrst day of trial,
        Perkins refused to leave his holding cell in the courthouse and told
        the marshals that if they forced him to go to the courtroom, he
        would go “kicking and screaming.” The district court considered
        a variety of resolutions, including forcing Perkins to exit the cell
        and using audio/visual equipment to allow Perkins to observe the
        trial. Ultimately, the district court met with Perkins in an interview
        room, accompanied by counsel for the parties and a court reporter,
        and attempted to advise Perkins of his rights with respect to trial,
        but he shouted that he did not understand, agree, or consent to
        being present at trial. The district court provided audio/visual
        coverage to Perkins during the ﬁrst day of trial and gave him the
        opportunity to enter the courtroom at any time and to speak with
        counsel.
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        20-14781                   Opinion of the Court                               5

               On the second day of trial, Perkins again refused to be
        present in the courtroom. The district court observed that
        Perkins’s antics were common to those espousing sovereign citizen
        beliefs and stated that it thought Perkins was not unstable but
        purely manipulative. The district court stated that it did not see a
        need for a competency hearing because Perkins was using a
        calculated strategy to disrupt and obstruct. Perkins refused to be
        present in the courtroom for the remainder of the trial, requiring
        restraints and marshal transport to the courthouse on day three.
        On June 28, 2011, the jury found Perkins guilty on all counts.
           2. Sentencing
              Between trial and sentencing, 19 months elapsed. Perkins’s
        sentencing hearing took place on February 25, 2013. The
        presentence investigation report (“PSI”) prepared in advance of
        sentencing calculated a guidelines range of life imprisonment, with
        a mandatory two-year term of imprisonment for Count 37
        (aggravated identity theft) to run consecutive to any other
        sentence.2 Neither Perkins nor any member of his family agreed
        to be interviewed for the PSI. The probation oﬃce therefore
        prepared the PSI using information from Perkins’s presentence

        2 The PSI calculated a total offense level of 45 and a criminal history category
        of IV. Counts 1–32 carried 30 years’ imprisonment, Counts 33–34 carried 10
        years, and Counts 35–36 carried 15 years, followed by Count 37’s mandatory
        term of 2 years’ imprisonment.
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        6                            Opinion of the Court                       20-14781

        report in his prior federal prosecution.3 That report, prepared in
        August 2000, included information about Perkins’s prior diagnosis
        of schizoaﬀective disorder and medications he was prescribed for
        that disorder.
              The PSI recounted a series of phone calls Perkins made in
        June 2011 to his mother and others while imprisoned during the
        proceedings below. Of note, during these phone calls, Perkins:
                     • Requested research on how to stop his trial from
                       proceeding;
                     • Indicated his belief that, if he acted crazy, he would
                       not be considered “present” for his trial;4
                     • Discussed the legal deﬁnition of presence under the
                       Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and case law; and

        3 In June 2000, Perkins was found guilty after a jury trial of conspiracy to
        produce false identification documents in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
        4 Perkins told his mother:
                I get it, I gotta go nuts before they even pick the jury, that’s
                what I gotta do. I gotta go haywire in that bitch. Don’t never
                act sensible. Just go crazy. Just keep on going crazy. You
                bitches wanna play games, alright, this shit’s gonna get really
                zoo-like.
        He also stated: “If I’m there acting like a fucking lunatic, then I ain’t there, my
        mind ain’t there.” Further, he told his mother that he would not enter the
        courtroom to hear the verdict: “I don’t want to be there for the verdict. I’m
        gonna go down there crazy as a motherfucker . . . I’m tryin’ every
        motherfuckin’ thing. I got ‘em.”
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        20-14781               Opinion of the Court                       7

                   • Bragged that he had refused to enter the courtroom
                     and was uncooperative with the district court.
               Perkins refused to attend his February 2013 sentencing
        hearing. Again, the district court, counsel, and a court reporter
        visited Perkins in his holding cell. The district court attempted to
        give Perkins a copy of the PSI and then left the cell. During the
        hearing, Perkins’s counsel presented mitigation evidence to the
        court, including that Perkins had been previously diagnosed with
        schizoaﬀective disorder, that he had been arrested 20 times before
        the age of 14, and that he was raised in foster care. Counsel
        requested mental health treatment for Perkins as part of his
        sentence and a downward variance to 12 to 15 years’ total
        imprisonment. The district court announced a provisional
        sentence of 360 months’ imprisonment but kept the record open
        to allow Perkins several weeks to review the PSI and make any
        objections.
               After the sentencing hearing but before the entry of the
        sentence, Perkins’s counsel ﬁled a motion for a competency
        hearing. He stated that, despite having no recent contact with
        Perkins, he received information from another client regarding
        Perkins’s mental state: “[A]nother client, who I believe has no
        interest in Mr. Perkins, inquired about my representation of him
        (Perkins). He noted that Perkins ‘seemed crazy.’” Counsel also
        stated that he was contacted by an acquaintance who grew up in
        the foster care system with Perkins who believed Perkins had
        mental health issues. This individual visited Perkins in prison and
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                 20-14781

        learned that he was taking antipsychotic and antidepressant
        medications. Perkins told his visitor that he believed the
        government and his attorney were conspiring to kill him and that
        someone was tampering with his food. Based on that information
        and the PSI’s note regarding Perkins’s schizoaﬀective disorder
        diagnosis in 2000, counsel requested a competency hearing.
                The district court entered a lengthy order denying the
        motion (among others). The district court noted that Perkins’s
        actions were part of a “sovereign citizenship litigation strategy”
        designed to “delay the proceedings, create unnecessary work for
        the [c]ourt and counsel, and distract the [c]ourt from adjudication
        of the case on its merits.” The district court concluded that the
        jailhouse telephone calls showed that Perkins’s refusal to cooperate
        was a “premeditated litigation strategy to insulate himself from a
        conviction.” Thus, it found that there “was certainly no question
        that [he] was competent at the time of his trial.” The district court
        also said that “his pro se motions prior to sentencing” and after trial
        “suggest that this level of competency remained.” With respect to
        sentencing, the district court stated that if Perkins was able to
        “establish a stronger foundation for questioning his competency at
        sentencing,” and if he “was truly not competent at the time of
        sentencing, . . . it [would] be easy enough to resentence him once
        that is established.”
              Perkins’s sentence was ﬁnalized in July 2013. Following the
        entry of ﬁnal judgment, Perkins appealed. On direct appeal,
        represented by new counsel, Perkins argued, among other things,
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        20-14781                    Opinion of the Court                                 9

        that the district court erred in denying his motion for a competency
        hearing. Perkins, 787 F.3d at 1340. We aﬃrmed his sentence and
        concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in
        ﬁnding Perkins competent to stand trial or in denying the motion
        for a competency hearing. Id. at 1339–40. We also held that the
        record supported the district court’s conclusion that Perkins
        “seemed lucid.” Id. at 1340.
            3. The present § 2255 motion and evidentiary hearing
               Perkins ﬁled a motion to vacate pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255
        on December 7, 2016, raising ﬁve claims, only two of which are
        relevant on appeal: (1) substantive and procedural competency
        (“Claim One”); and (2) ineﬀective assistance of counsel related to
        counsel’s failure to request a mental health evaluation (“Claim
        Two”).5
               To start, the government opposed the motion and asserted
        that the issue of a competency hearing was procedurally barred,
        Perkins was competent and thus was not prejudiced by allegedly
        deﬁcient representation, and his attorneys’ performance was not
        deﬁcient. In his reply, Perkins argued that his “counsels’ failure to

        5 In addition to the two claims we address today, Perkins raised three
        additional claims in his § 2255 motion: (3) a Sixth Amendment violation
        relating to the district court’s meeting with Perkins in the Marshals’ lockup
        prior to the start of trial; (4) ineffective assistance of counsel relating to
        counsel’s failure to object to the meeting with the district court prior to the
        start of trial; and (5) ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to move for a
        recusal of the district court judge. He does not raise these issues on appeal.
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        10                        Opinion of the Court                    20-14781

        request relevant medical records is one component of their failure
        to properly make and support a request for a competency hearing,”
        but also requested leave to amend his motion to add a claim based
        on his counsels’ failure to request Perkins’s medical records if the
        district court disagreed with that argument.6
                The magistrate judge held an evidentiary hearing on one
        issue: whether Perkins’s attorneys provided ineﬀective assistance in
        failing to request a mental health evaluation prior to or during trial
        or after trial and before sentencing.
               The magistrate judge heard testimony from several
        witnesses, including three medical professionals from the Bureau
        of Prisons (“BOP”) who treated Perkins. Dr. Nancy Strauch, a BOP
        psychiatrist, treated Perkins once in March 2010, at which time she
        diagnosed him with substance-induced delusional disorder,
        meaning that Perkins’s “paranoia . . . could be due to substance
        misuse or abuse or dependence.” On direct examination, she
        testiﬁed that Perkins did not mention to her that he was mentally
        ill and that she believed medication was not necessary. On cross-
        examination, Dr. Strauch testiﬁed that she never performed a

        6 While the district court did not specifically reference Perkins’s motion to
        amend his § 2255 petition, the magistrate judge acknowledged it in its report
        and recommendation and found that such an “argument exceed[ed] the scope
        of the claim delimited for the evidentiary hearing and . . . amount[ed] to
        nothing more than speculation built upon speculation.” The district court
        then adopted the report and recommendation as the order and opinion of the
        court.
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        20-14781                 Opinion of the Court                             11

        competency evaluation of Perkins because it was not her job to do
        so.
               Dr. Amanda Eberle, a BOP psychologist, treated Perkins
        from November 2013 to March 2017 and diagnosed him with
        schizophrenia7 in 2014, placing him on various medications. While
        she testiﬁed that she believed Perkins had delusional thoughts, she
        did not oﬀer any opinion as to Perkins’s competency because it was
        not her job to do so. However, she also clariﬁed on cross-
        examination that the symptoms of delusions she reported were
        based upon Perkins’s self-reporting. Counsel for the government
        noted that Dr. Eberle did not document any delusions whatsoever
        between September 2014 and September 2016.
               Dr. Courtney Tibbetts, a BOP psychologist, treated Perkins
        in 2017. She testiﬁed that Perkins’s symptoms were inconsistent
        and largely self-reported and that she believed his symptoms were
        calculated. 8 She testiﬁed that she did not believe Perkins had

        7 Dr. Eberle explained the difference between schizophrenia and
        schizoaffective disorder:
               Schizoaffective disorder is basically a combination of
               schizophrenia and a mood disorder. With Mr. Perkins I saw
               symptoms of schizophrenia with the delusional belief, but I did
               not see any evidence that any of that was tied to any kind of
               mood disorder.
        8 Dr. Tibbetts testified that Perkins’s self-reporting of symptoms typically
        occurred in close temporal proximity to “goal-oriented behavior,” i.e., when
        he wanted something.
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        12                     Opinion of the Court               20-14781

        schizophrenia because carrying out the “rather intricate” fraud
        with which he was convicted would not be typical for someone
        with schizophrenia.
               The magistrate judge also heard testimony from both of
        Perkins’s appointed counsel. Perkins’s ﬁrst attorney testiﬁed that
        he received the 2000 PSI in June 2010, which included Perkins’s
        prior schizoaﬀective disorder diagnosis, but that he had no
        concerns about Perkins’s mental health because Perkins appeared
        competent. He stated that Perkins never showed any signs of
        delusions or that he was out of touch with reality but rather that
        he understood the charges against him, possible defenses, and how
        the criminal justice system functioned. Perkins’s second attorney,
        who represented him at trial and sentencing, testiﬁed that Perkins
        raised a sovereign citizen defense. He testiﬁed that he did not
        discuss any mental health issues with Perkins and did not request
        medical records but believed he should have done so after receiving
        the 2000 PSI and talking to a relative about Perkins’s mental health
        issues. He noted, however, that prior to receiving the PSI and
        speaking with Perkins’s relative, he had no concerns about
        Perkins’s competency.
               Lastly, the magistrate judge heard testimony from two
        expert witnesses. Dr. Adriana Flores, a clinical psychologist and
        expert witness oﬀered by Perkins, and Dr. Michael Vitacco, a
        forensic psychologist and expert witness oﬀered by the
        government. Dr. Flores evaluated Perkins in 2019 and, based on
        the evaluation, review of medical records, and the record in the
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        20-14781                   Opinion of the Court                              13

        case, concluded that Perkins was not competent at the time of his
        2011 trial or 2013 sentencing. She testiﬁed that Perkins displayed
        delusional, paranoid, and disjointed thoughts and that she believed
        Perkins could not understand the consequences of the criminal
        proceedings as a result.
              Dr. Vitacco, on the other hand, did not evaluate Perkins but
        reviewed his medical records, legal documents, and the jailhouse
        phone calls and concluded that Perkins was competent at the time
        of his trial and sentencing. He testiﬁed that Dr. Flores’s
        conclusions ran counter to Perkins’s psychiatric history and that he
        agreed with Dr. Tibbetts that Perkins’s behaviors and symptoms
        were calculated.
              Perkins also submitted his psychological records, one of
        which contained information relating to a diagnosis of depressive
        type psychosis he received from Dr. Victor Gonzalez9 at the BOP
        on December 17, 2012, while Perkins awaited sentencing. Perkins
        points to three additional purportedly relevant notations or
        diagnoses in these medical records: (1) a psychology services intake
        screening related to a prior case that occurred on October 23, 2001,
        notes of which showed Perkins’s prior prescriptions of Vistaril,

        9 Perkins relies heavily on a single record of his evaluation by Dr. Gonzalez,
        but the record does not reveal much about Dr. Gonzalez himself or his
        evaluation of Perkins other than that Dr. Gonzalez diagnosed Perkins with
        depressive type psychosis at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.
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        14                         Opinion of the Court                       20-14781

        Eﬀexor, and Risperdal; 10 (2) a March 12, 2010, psychological
        evaluation at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Center, during
        which Perkins exhibited a “ﬂight of ideas” and signs of paranoia
        about the AIDS virus; and (3) Dr. Strauch’s March 17, 2010,
        psychiatric evaluation, when she observed Perkins exhibiting
        paranoid ideations she associated with substance abuse.
               Following the hearing and supplemental brieﬁng, the
        magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation
        recommending that the district court deny Perkins’s § 2255 motion
        and deny a certiﬁcate of appealability (“COA”). Regarding Claim
        One (substantive and procedural competency), the magistrate
        judge concluded that Perkins was procedurally barred from raising
        the claim on collateral review because we denied it on direct
        appeal. The magistrate judge also concluded Perkins was
        competent at the time of trial and at sentencing. As for Claim Two
        (ineﬀective assistance of counsel), the magistrate judge determined

        10 Vistaril, or hydroxyzine, is prescribed to treat anxiety and tension. See
        Hydroxyzine (Oral Route), Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-
        supplements/hydroxyzine-oral-route/proper-use/drg-20311434?p=1,             (last
        updated June 1, 2023). Effexor, or venlafaxine, is an anti-depressant used to
        treat general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. See
        Venlafaxine (Oral Route) Description and Brand Names, Mayo Clinic,
        https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/venlafaxine-oral-
        route/description/drg-20067379, (last updated June 1, 2023). Risperdal, or
        risperidone, is an anti-psychotic prescribed to treat schizophrenia, bipolar
        disorder, or irritability associated with autism. See Risperidone (Oral Route),
        Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/drg-20067189?p=1, (last updated
        June 1, 2023).
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        20-14781                   Opinion of the Court                            15

        that Perkins had not demonstrated that his counsel was deﬁcient
        before or during trial, as well as before sentencing, because any
        competency motion likely would have been futile. The magistrate
        judge, expressly discounting Dr. Flores’s testimony as not credible
        and unreliable, determined that Perkins did not demonstrate that
        he suﬀered prejudice because he had not established that he was
        incompetent at trial or at sentencing. 11
                Perkins ﬁled objections to the magistrate judge’s
        recommendation that Claims One and Two be denied and that a
        COA be denied. Nonetheless, the district court adopted the report
        and recommendation. The district court stated that “[f ]rom a
        review of the record it is clear that [Perkins], leading up to his trial,
        during his trial, and afterward, attempted to fake being mentally
        incompetent in an eﬀort to disrupt his criminal proceedings.” The
        district court also concluded that because we ruled on direct appeal
        that the district court had not erred in denying Perkins’s motion for
        a competency hearing, we implicitly found that there was no bona

        11 Specifically, the magistrate judge stated:
                [A]lthough Dr. Flores opined that [Perkins] was not competent
                at trial or sentencing, the undersigned finds that Dr. Flores’s
                testimony is entitled to little, if any, weight. Dr. Flores
                primarily based her opinion on her personal observations of
                [Perkins], yet it is difficult to see how such present
                observations, conducted in late 2019, could reveal whether
                [Perkins] was competent in 2011, over eight years beforehand.
                Dr. Flores’s conclusion . . . is also at odds with the
                observations of numerous other doctors.
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        16                    Opinion of the Court                20-14781

        ﬁde doubt as to Perkins’s competency. As for Claim Two, the
        district court agreed that Perkins had not proven prejudice for his
        ineﬀective-assistance-of-counsel claim because the trial and
        sentencing court would not have granted a motion for a
        competency hearing and Perkins had not established that he was
        incompetent.
               Although the district court adopted the report and
        recommendation and denied Perkins’s § 2255 motion, it granted a
        COA on one issue, noting “the long time gap between the trial and
        the sentencing hearing (roughly 19 months) and the fact that
        [Perkins] has presented signiﬁcant evidence that his mental health
        legitimately appeared to deteriorate in the interim.”
               Perkins timely appealed the denial of his § 2255 motion. He
        also ﬁled a motion to expand the COA, which we denied in part
        and granted in part. There are now two issues on appeal:
                  1) “Whether Mr. Perkins’s substantive due process
                     rights were violated when he was denied a
                     competency hearing in connection with his
                     sentencing hearing because of the long[]time gap
                     between the trial and sentencing and because he had
                     presented evidence that his mental health
                     legitimately appeared to have deteriorated over that
                     time period;” and
                  2) “Whether trial counsel provided ineﬀective assistance
                     by failing to seek a mental-health evaluation or
                     request Mr. Perkins’s mental-health records when
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        20-14781                   Opinion of the Court                              17

                       trial counsel learned, after trial but before sentencing,
                       that Mr. Perkins suﬀered from mental-health issues.”
                                       II.     Discussion
               In reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion to vacate
        under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, 12 we review legal conclusions de novo and
        ﬁndings of fact for clear error. Stouﬄet v. United States, 757 F.3d
        1236, 1239 (11th Cir. 2014).
                   A. Perkins’s substantive competency claim (Claim One)
             We turn ﬁrst to the merits of Perkins’s substantive
        competency during sentencing claim. 13 The Due Process Clause

        12 Under § 2255, a prisoner in federal custody may file a motion to vacate, set
        aside, or correct a sentence when he claims
               the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was
               imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United
               States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose
               such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the
               maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to
               collateral attack.
        28 U.S.C. § 2255(a).
        13 The government argues that Perkins is procedurally barred from raising
        both of his claims because, according to the government, we held on direct
        appeal that Perkins was competent at the time of trial and sentencing. We
        may decline to consider whether an issue is procedurally barred where it will
        ultimately fail on the merits. See, e.g., Loggins v. Thomas, 654 F.3d 1204, 1215
        (11th Cir. 2011) (“When relief is due to be denied even if claims are not
        procedurally barred, we can skip over the procedural bar issues[.]”). Even
        assuming that Perkins is not procedurally barred from raising either of his
        claims, they would fail on the merits, as we discuss below. We therefore
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        18                        Opinion of the Court                    20-14781

        of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from trying a
        defendant who is incompetent. See U.S. Const. amend. V; Pate v.
        Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 378 (1966). This right extends to sentencing.
        See United States v. Rahim, 431 F.3d 753, 759–60 (11th Cir. 2005).
               A petitioner “is entitled to no presumption of incompetency
        and must demonstrate his . . . incompetency by a preponderance
        of the evidence.” Lawrence v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 700 F.3d 464,
        481 (11th Cir. 2012) (quoting James v. Singletary, 957 F.2d 1562, 1571
        (11th Cir. 1992)). “[T]he standard of proof is high,” and the facts
        must “positively, unequivocally and clearly generate [a] legitimate
        doubt.” Card v. Singletary, 981 F.2d 481, 484 (11th Cir. 1992)
        (quotation omitted). The determination of competence asks
        “whether [a defendant] has suﬃcient present ability to consult with
        his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding—
        and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of
        the proceedings against him.” Medina v. Singletary, 59 F.3d 1095,
        1106 (11th Cir. 1995) (quoting Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402,
        402 (1960)).
               “Not every manifestation of mental illness demonstrates”
        that the defendant is incompetent; “rather, the evidence must
        indicate a present inability to assist counsel or understand the
        charges” at the time of the relevant proceeding, such as trial or
        sentencing. Battle v. United States, 419 F.3d 1292, 1299–1300 (11th

        decline to address whether Perkins is procedurally barred from raising either
        his substantive competency claim or his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
        claim.
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        20-14781                Opinion of the Court                         19

        Cir. 2005) (distinguishing the defendant’s behavior in the
        courtroom at trial with his purported “history of mental illness”).
        Likewise, neither low intelligence nor mental deﬁciency can be
        equated with mental incompetence. Id.; see also Wright v. Sec’y for
        Dep’t of Corr., 278 F.3d 1245, 1259 (11th Cir. 2002). The fact that a
        petitioner was prescribed psychiatric drugs, standing alone, does
        not raise a bona ﬁde doubt as to his competence to stand trial. See
        Pardo v. Sec’y, Fl. Dep’t of Corr., 587 F.3d 1093, 1101 (11th Cir. 2009)
        (“Absent evidence of such an inability [to assist counsel or
        understand the charges], evidence of low intelligence, mental
        deﬁciency, bizarre, volatile, or irrational behavior, or the use of
        anti-psychotic drugs is not suﬃcient to show incompetence to
        stand trial.”).
               Whether a petitioner is substantively competent is a factual
        determination. United States v. Izquierdo, 448 F.3d 1269, 1278 (11th
        Cir. 2006). Thus, we review a district court’s competency
        determination for clear error. United States v. Bradley, 644 F.3d 1213,
        1267 (11th Cir. 2011). Clear error review, which is “highly
        deferential,” asks whether a factual ﬁnding, supported by evidence,
        leaves us “with the deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction that a mistake has
        been committed.” Eers v. Alabama, 876 F.3d 1086, 1094 (11th Cir.
        2017). Faced with conﬂicting expert testimony, a district court does
        not clearly err by crediting one opinion over another where other
        record evidence also supports the conclusion. Battle, 419 F.3d at
        1299; see also Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574
        (1985) (“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence,
        the factﬁnder’s choice between them cannot be clearly
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14781

        erroneous.”). “[A]n appellate court . . . must aﬀord ‘due regard . . .
        to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of
        the witnesses.’” Eers, 876 F.3d at 1095 (quoting Amadeo v. Zant,
        486 U.S. 214, 223 (1988)).
               The magistrate judge and district court did not clearly err,
        in ruling on Perkins’s § 2255 motion, in choosing not to credit the
        expert testimony of Dr. Flores and determining that Perkins was
        competent at the time of sentencing. The magistrate judge
        primarily relied on (1) Perkins’s June 2011 jailhouse phone calls
        demonstrating his knowledge of criminal procedure and the court
        proceedings; and (2) the expert testimony presented at the
        evidentiary hearing. The district court, in adopting the report and
        recommendation of the magistrate judge, stated that “[h]aving . . .
        reviewed the record,” it agreed that Perkins was competent at the
        time of trial and sentencing and that it would not disturb the
        magistrate judge’s credibility determinations as to Dr. Flores.
              Based on the evidence in the record and the testimony
        presented at the § 2255 evidentiary hearing, there is no indication,
        much less one that would lead to a “deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction”
        on appeal, that the district court’s conclusion that Perkins was
        competent during sentencing was wrong.
              First, Perkins’s 2011 phone calls to his mother are strong
        evidence that Perkins’s bizarre behavior throughout trial and
        during the sentencing phase was a contrived and intentional
        attempt to disrupt the district court’s proceedings. Of course, the
        19-month gap between the time of these phone calls and his 2013
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        20-14781                  Opinion of the Court                            21

        sentencing is not insigniﬁcant. But, importantly, the phone calls are
        evidence that immediately prior to trial, Perkins intentionally
        feigned mental illness in an attempt to avoid and thwart the
        proceedings against him. Accordingly, the magistrate judge did not
        clearly err in aﬀording some weight to these phone calls when
        determining that Perkins was competent at the time of sentencing.
               Second, the magistrate judge did not clearly err when it
        aﬀorded “little, if any, weight” to the testimony of Dr. Flores as a
        result of (1) the long period between her evaluation and the
        relevant time period in this case and (2) the fact that her testimony
        conﬂicted with the other experts’ testimonies.
                Dr. Flores evaluated Perkins on September 5 and 26, 2019—
        more than eight years after his trial and more than six years after
        sentencing. This time gap notwithstanding, based upon her
        evaluation of Perkins and review of various record materials, she
        determined that Perkins was not competent in June 2011 at the
        time of trial, nor was he competent in February 2013 at the time of
        sentencing. However, Dr. Flores’s report is based almost
        exclusively on Perkins’s own recollections of his prior mental
        state. 14 These observations may touch on Perkins’s understanding

        14 For instance, she wrote: “About sentencing, [Perkins] said, he ‘Had not
        talked to anyone about nothing. [He] wasn’t really into it. [He] didn’t care’
        (he indicated that he was on Risperdal and Prozac at the time).” She also
        recounted that “Mr. Perkins said, ‘I didn’t give a shit about nothin’. I knew
        what this dude [his attorney] was up to. I knew he was out to get me. But,
        for the most part, I didn’t care about anything.’”
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        22                          Opinion of the Court                   20-14781

        of his mental state at the time of sentencing, but they are not
        speciﬁc or probative enough to disturb the district court’s
        competency ﬁnding because information provided by Perkins in
        late 2019 does very little to shed light on his mental state in 2013.
        Furthermore, at the evidentiary hearing, Dr. Flores could not
        provide any additional explanation as to how she concluded, based
        upon her 2019 evaluation, that Perkins was incompetent at the time
        of sentencing. For instance, she conceded that there was no record
        of Perkins experiencing hallucinations at the time of trial or
        sentencing.15 She also admitted that it was diﬃcult to assess

        15 Dr. Flores testified as follows:
                Q [by the government]. And . . . your observing hallucinations
                are part of your bases for the conclusion that [Perkins was]
                incompetent?
                A [by Dr. Flores]. I’m saying that those symptoms are
                consistent with a severe and persistent thought disorder that
                existed at the time of trial and sentencing.
                Q. Okay. But there’s no evidence of him ever experiencing
                these hallucinations at the time of this trial, right?
                A. No, there’s – there’s nothing that points to that, that’s
                correct.
                Q. Or even after his trial before you saw him?
                A. There’s mention – there’s mention in the record multiple
                times he has reported experiencing hallucinations in the past.
                                              ***
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        20-14781                 Opinion of the Court                           23

        Perkins’s competency retrospectively. Accordingly, Dr. Flores’s
        own report and testimony undermine her conclusion that Perkins
        was incompetent, and the magistrate judge and the district court
        did not clearly err in concluding that Dr. Flores’s severely post-
        dated competency determination was not credible.
                Additionally, the magistrate judge and the district court did
        not clearly err in choosing not to credit Dr. Flores’s opinion in light
        of its conﬂict with those given by the other doctors who examined
        Perkins post-sentencing, but prior to Dr. Flores. For example, the
        magistrate judge noted that while Dr. Flores observed Perkins
        displaying signs of psychosis immediately upon meeting her, Dr.
        Eberle did not report any psychotic symptoms between September
        2014 and September 2016 and Dr. Tibbetts did not report any
        psychotic problems between May and December 2017 while
        treating Perkins regularly. In the magistrate judge’s view, it was
        simply not credible that Perkins’s symptoms reappeared “precisely
        at an important evaluation for his motion to vacate,” especially
        considering that Dr. Tibbett had observed that Perkins’s symptoms
        tended to be goal oriented. The district court agreed, noting that
        it was “clear” that Perkins maintained “his eﬀorts to ‘game’ the

               Q. And is it your conclusion in this case that he was
               experiencing hallucinations at the time of his trial and
               sentencing?
               A. There’s some indication that he may have been, but I don’t
               have anything in the record, that’s completely a self-report.
        (emphasis added).
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        24                        Opinion of the Court                      20-14781

        system to his advantage.” Our review of the record reveals that
        neither the magistrate judge nor the district court clearly erred in
        declining to credit Dr. Flores’s opinion.
               Perkins has not demonstrated that the magistrate judge, and
        subsequently the district court, clearly erred in choosing to
        discredit Dr. Flores’s report and testimony, given that Dr. Flores’s
        opinions were based upon primarily Perkins’s own self-reporting
        six years after his sentencing and her opinions conﬂicted with the
        opinions of other doctors who had evaluated Perkins prior to 2019.
        We are not left with a “deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction” that a mistake
        was made by the district court in denying Claim One of Perkins’s
        § 2255 petition. We therefore aﬃrm the district court’s denial of
        Perkins’s substantive competency claim.
                   B. Perkins’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim (Claim
                      Two)
               Perkins has alleged that he received ineﬀective assistance of
        counsel because of his “counsel’s failure to secure relevant records,
        investigate [his] mental health issues, or attempt to secure a mental
        health evaluation or a competency evaluation.” 16

        16 While Perkins raised this argument below, the magistrate judge focused on
        counsel’s decision not to move for a competency hearing prior to trial,
        concluding that the trial and sentencing court would not have granted such a
        motion based on its statements indicating that it thought that “in no uncertain
        terms . . . [Perkins] was competent.” The district court, likewise, agreed with
        the magistrate judge that Perkins had not established deficient performance or
        prejudice because it likely would not have granted a motion for a competency
        hearing and Perkins had not established that he was incompetent. Neither the
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        20-14781                  Opinion of the Court                              25

               “In a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 proceeding, we review a district court’s
        legal conclusions de novo and factual ﬁndings for clear error.”
        Devine v. United States, 520 F.3d 1286, 1287 (11th Cir. 2008).
        Whether counsel was ineﬀective is a mixed question of law and fact
        that we review de novo. Id. A defendant is entitled to the eﬀective
        assistance of counsel not only during the guilt or innocence phase
        of a criminal trial, but also during sentencing, resentencing, and on
        direct appeal. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984).
        To prevail on a claim for ineﬀective assistance of counsel, a
        petitioner must show that (1) counsel’s performance was deﬁcient,
        and (2) the deﬁcient performance prejudiced his defense. Id. at 687.
        “Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly
        deferential.” Chandler v. United States, 218 F.3d 1305, 1314 (11th Cir.
        2000) (en banc) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689).
               Deﬁcient performance “requires showing that counsel made
        errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’
        guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.” Strickland,
        466 U.S. at 687. In assessing attorney performance, the reviewing
        court should make every eﬀort “to eliminate the distorting eﬀects

        magistrate judge nor the district court addressed Perkins’s claim that, had his
        counsel sought medical records or requested a mental health or competency
        evaluation, counsel could have used such evidence in support of mitigation
        during sentencing. But, as we explain below, counsel’s performance was not
        deficient, and Perkins has not established that he was prejudiced by his
        counsel’s allegedly deficient performance as related to his medical records or
        potential mental health or competency evaluations.
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        26                      Opinion of the Court                 20-14781

        of hindsight” and “evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective
        at the time.” Id. at 689.
               There is a “‘strong presumption’ that counsel’s performance
        was reasonable and that counsel ‘made all signiﬁcant decisions in
        the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.’” Chandler, 218
        F.3d at 1314 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689). For this reason, in
        order for a petitioner “to show that [counsel’s] conduct was
        unreasonable, [he] must establish that no competent counsel
        would have taken the action that his counsel did take.” Id. at 1315.
        This is “a diﬃcult burden.” Johnston v. Singletary, 162 F.3d 630, 634
        (11th Cir. 1998).
                Prejudice occurs when there is a “reasonable probability
        that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the
        proceeding would have been diﬀerent.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694.
        “It is not enough for the [petitioner] to show that the errors had
        some conceivable eﬀect on the outcome of the proceeding,”
        because “[v]irtually every act or omission of counsel would meet
        that test.” Id. at 693. Rather, “[c]ounsel’s errors must be ‘so serious
        as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is
        reliable.’” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 104 (2011) (quoting
        Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687).
               “[U]nder certain circumstances, trial counsel’s failure to
        apprise the court of a client’s changing mental state . . . can
        constitute ineﬀective assistance.” Johnston, 162 F.3d at 635
        (emphasis in original). To establish deﬁcient performance in this
        context, a defendant must show that his counsel failed to bring
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        20-14781                Opinion of the Court                        27

        “information raising a bona ﬁde doubt regarding [his] competency”
        to the trial court’s attention when every reasonable attorney would
        have done so. James, 957 F.2d at 1570. Further, to establish
        prejudice, he must show that “there was a reasonable probability
        that he would have received a competency hearing and been found
        incompetent had counsel requested the hearing.” Lawrence, 700
        F.3d at 479 (emphasis in original).
               We have held that where counsel fails to conduct a
        “thorough investigation of law and facts,” his performance can be
        ineﬀective. Sullivan v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 837 F.3d 1195, 1204
        (11th Cir. 2016). However, “[c]ounsel’s investigation does not fall
        below Strickland’s standard so long as a reasonable lawyer could
        have decided, under the circumstances, not to investigate particular
        evidence.” Id. at 1204–05 (quotation omitted and alteration
        adopted). Furthermore, a petitioner must be able to point to
        evidence of prejudice that amounts to more than mere speculation.
        See Brownlee v. Haley, 306 F.3d 1043, 1060 (11th Cir. 2002)
        (“[S]peculation is insuﬃcient to carry the burden of a habeas
        corpus petitioner as to what evidence could have been revealed by
        further investigation.” (quoting Aldrich v. Wainwright, 777 F.2d 630,
        636 (11th Cir. 1985)).
                   1. Deﬁcient Performance
              Perkins’s second attorney, who represented him at trial and
        sentencing, testiﬁed during the evidentiary hearing that he did not
        request medical records or a mental health evaluation even though
        he “probably should have” and that “there was no good reason not
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        28                         Opinion of the Court                      20-14781

        to” request an evaluation.17 However, he also stated that he did
        not request the records or evaluation because he did not learn of
        Perkins’s mental health issues until he received the PSI and did not
        have any reason to believe that Perkins was incompetent. He
        recalled that Perkins had not cooperated with him prior to trial and
        thus he had no meaningful opportunity to learn anything from
        Perkins, including any information about his mental health.18
                After he received the PSI and learned of Perkins’s mental
        health issues, counsel spoke with Perkins’s mother about Perkins’s
        mental health history. At sentencing, counsel informed the district
        court that Perkins had a history of schizoaﬀective disorder and that
        there was “something wrong” with Perkins. Counsel also
        requested mental health treatment for Perkins. He testiﬁed that
        after issuance of the district court’s provisional sentence of 360
        months’ imprisonment, he realized he “had not done something
        right” and that he wanted Perkins’s competency evaluated. It was
        then that he ﬁled his motion for a competency hearing.19

        17 Perkins’s first attorney testified at the evidentiary hearing that he did not
        have any concerns about Perkins’s mental health or competency.
        18 From the start of his representation of Perkins through trial, Perkins’s
        second attorney was under the impression that Perkins ascribed to the beliefs
        of the sovereign citizen movement. And in his testimony, counsel never
        attributed any of Perkins’s sovereign citizen beliefs or bizarre behavior, such
        as refusing to attend his trial, to mental illness or mental incompetence.
        19 By this time, counsel had also learned through another client incarcerated
        with Perkins that Perkins “seemed crazy.”
USCA11 Case: 20-14781      Document: 44-1      Date Filed: 07/10/2023     Page: 29 of 33

        20-14781                Opinion of the Court                        29

               According to Perkins, however, his attorney should have
        requested Perkins’s medical records and moved for a mental health
        evaluation upon learning about Perkins’s mental health issues
        from the PSI before sentencing. Perkins contends that if counsel
        had obtained Perkins’s medical records and an evaluation, that
        additional evidence could have been used as mitigation at the
        sentencing hearing or bolstered the motion for a competency
        hearing after sentencing. He argues that the medical records, if
        counsel had requested and reviewed them, would have shown “a
        history of mental health issues that would have warranted further
        investigation at the time of sentencing.” Speciﬁcally, Perkins relies
        on the December 2012 diagnosis of depressive type psychosis by
        Dr. Gonzalez while Perkins was incarcerated in Atlanta.
                But Perkins ignores that counsel did, in fact, request that the
        district court order mental health treatment as part of any sentence
        imposed. Counsel also moved for a competency hearing following
        sentencing so “a record regarding Mr. Perkins[’s] mental status
        could be developed”—all this without being equipped with the
        additional medical records from the BOP.
               Perkins’s counsel’s performance was not deﬁcient. After
        learning of Perkins’s mental health issues from the PSI, he spoke
        with Perkins’s mother, raised his concerns about Perkins’s mental
        state to the district court during the sentencing hearing, and
        continued to keep the district court apprised of a suspected change
        in Perkins’s mental state by moving for a competency hearing after
        the sentencing hearing. Any failure to strengthen the motion for a
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        30                     Opinion of the Court                20-14781

        competency hearing or the mitigation evidence presented at
        sentencing does not render counsel’s performance unreasonable
        under Strickland. See Harrington, 562 U.S. at 110 (“Strickland does
        not guarantee perfect representation[.]”); Johnston, 162 F.3d at 635;
        James, 957 F.2d at 1570.
                  2. Prejudice
               Even assuming these alleged failures constitute deﬁcient
        performance, Perkins has not established prejudice. He has not
        shown that there was a reasonable probability that he would have
        received a more lenient sentence as a result of any mitigating
        evidence contained in his medical records beyond what counsel
        presented at sentencing or that would have been uncovered during
        a mental health evaluation.
                First, there are no documents in the medical or BOP records
        upon which Perkins relies demonstrating or even mentioning his
        competence, i.e., his ability to understand the proceedings or to
        assist counsel in his defense. For instance, Perkins’s December 2012
        diagnosis of depressive type psychosis from Dr. Gonzalez is
        contained only in a one-line entry in a single medical record. The
        record contains no notes, discussion, or elaboration on the
        diagnosis. While a diagnosis of depressive type psychosis might
        suggest that Perkins was suﬀering from a mental illness that could
        have impaired his competency, Perkins has pointed to no evidence
        that this illness did, in fact, render him incompetent at the time of
        sentencing. Similarly, Perkins points to information from Dr.
        Strauch’s evaluation in 2010 contained in his medical records. That
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        20-14781                  Opinion of the Court                            31

        information shows that Perkins was taking various psychiatric
        drugs and was exhibiting certain paranoid behaviors but,
        importantly, those documents do not contain any information or
        opinion from Dr. Strauch as to Perkins’s competency. The lack of
        any competency determination from Dr. Strauch is not surprising,
        given that Dr. Strauch testiﬁed at the evidentiary hearing that she
        did not provide any opinion as to Perkins’s competency because it
        was not her job to do so. 20 Because those records do not contain
        any indication that any of Perkins’s several providers found him not
        to be competent, he has not demonstrated that bringing those
        records to the court’s attention before the imposition of his
        sentence would have given the district court a bona ﬁde doubt as
        to his competency. See James, 957 F.2d at 1570.
               Second, Perkins again relies upon Dr. Flores’s testimony
        during the evidentiary hearing about her 2019 evaluation of
        Perkins, arguing that, had a similar evaluation been conducted
        sooner, the results of that earlier evaluation could have been used
        as mitigation evidence at sentencing. Again, Perkins points to no
        indication in his medical records or from the evidentiary hearing
        that any evaluation conducted at the time of his 2013 sentencing

        20 Perkins also points to a May 2014 diagnosis of schizophrenia from a BOP
        physician, which he argues demonstrates that Perkins “actually had a
        diagnosable mental illness close in time to sentencing.” It should go without
        saying that Perkins could not have been prejudiced by counsel’s failure to
        request medical documents that post-date his sentencing by over 14 months.
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        32                      Opinion of the Court                  20-14781

        would have resulted in a diagnosis that would have given the
        district court a bona ﬁde doubt as to his competency. See id.
                Indeed, the district court noted on numerous occasions
        before, during, and after trial, as well as during and after
        sentencing, that Perkins exhibited obstructionist behavior that was
        “studied, deﬁnitely contrived, deﬁnitely manipulative,” and
        appeared to be “sovereign citizenship on steroids,” designed to be
        “dramatic” and “provocative.” The district court also indicated that
        it was possible that Perkins’s post-trial statements made to the
        acquaintance who visited Perkins in prison could have been “a
        further eﬀort to manipulate the court system,” and that his post-
        trial pro se motions indicated that Perkins remained competent.
        With such a deﬁnitive impression of Perkins as a competent,
        deliberate obstructionist, it is highly unlikely that the district court
        would have changed its mind about Perkins’s competency if it were
        presented with an additional diagnosis of mental illness at the time
        of sentencing, given Perkins’s prior transparent attempts to game
        the system. In short, Perkins has failed to establish a reasonable
        probability that he would have received a mental health evaluation
        before or after the sentencing hearing had counsel requested
        Perkins’s medical records and that he would have been found
        incompetent as a result. Lawrence, 700 F.3d at 479.
              For these reasons, we aﬃrm the district court’s rejection of
        Perkins’s claim for ineﬀective assistance of counsel.
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        20-14781               Opinion of the Court                      33

                                  III.   Conclusion
                Perkins’s substantive due process rights were not violated
        when the district court denied his motion for a competency
        hearing. Nor did Perkins receive constitutionally deﬁcient
        performance from court-appointed counsel when they failed to
        request his medical records or request a mental health evaluation.
        Even if such failures constituted deﬁcient performance, Perkins has
        not demonstrated that he was prejudiced as a result. Thus, the
        district court did not err in denying Perkins’s § 2255 motion and we
        aﬃrm.
              AFFIRMED.