Lancelot Zarie Dawkins v. the State of Texas

In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
___________________________

No. 02-25-00338-CR
___________________________

LANCELOT ZARIE DAWKINS, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS

On Appeal from the 213th District Court
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. 1847463

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Kerr and Birdwell, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth
MEMORANDUM OPINION

Pro se Appellant Lancelot Zarie Dawkins attempts to appeal his conviction,

but he filed his notice of appeal nine months too late. The notice was due within

thirty days of Dawkins’s November 2024 sentencing, i.e., in December 2024, see Tex.

R. App. P. 26.2(a)(1), but it was not filed until September 2025.

Because “[o]ur appellate jurisdiction is triggered through a timely notice of

appeal,” Reaves v. State, No. 02-21-00092-CR, 2021 WL 3679248, at *1 (Tex. App.—

Fort Worth Aug. 19, 2021, no pet.) (per curiam) (mem. op., not designated for

publication), we sent Dawkins a letter expressing our concern that we lacked

jurisdiction over his appeal. We warned him that we could dismiss his appeal unless

he showed grounds for continuing it. Dawkins responded by alleging that the trial

court proceedings were tainted with inaccuracies, which he characterized as “Fraud

Upon the Court.”1 But such allegations do not change the deadline for Dawkins’s

notice of appeal, so they do nothing to remedy the dispositive jurisdictional flaw. Cf.

id. at *1 n.2 (dismissing untimely appeal despite defendant’s allegations of insufficient

evidence, unfairness, and ineffective assistance).

1
Dawkins entered into a plea bargain with the State, and the trial court signed a
certification confirming that “the defendant has waived the right of appeal” and that
this “is a plea[ ]bargain case, and the defendant has NO right of appeal.” See Tex. R.
App. P. 25.2(a)(2), (d). Because criminal appeals “must be dismissed if a certification
that shows the defendant has the right of appeal has not been made part of the
record,” Tex. R. App. P. 25.2(d), we would dismiss Dawkins’s appeal even if his
notice of appeal had been timely.

2
Accordingly, we dismiss Dawkins’s appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Tex. R.

App. P. 43.2(f); Reaves, 2021 WL 3679248, at *1 (dismissing untimely appeal for want

of jurisdiction).

/s/ Bonnie Sudderth

Bonnie Sudderth
Chief Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: October 23, 2025

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