UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

ANTHONY LEROY DAVIS, 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS, 

 Respondent - Appellee. 

No. 18-3174 

(D.C. No. 5:18-CV-03188-SAC) 

(D. Kan.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*

_________________________________ 

Before PHILLIPS, McKAY, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Before the court is Anthony Leroy Davis’s application for a certificate of 

appealability (COA). Davis is serving a life sentence in Kansas state prison for firstdegree murder, aggravated arson, and aggravated robbery. The district court denied 

his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition and his initial application for a COA. Davis now 

appeals these rulings, pro se. Before Davis’s appeal may proceed, however, he must 

obtain a COA from this court. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). We will issue a COA only 

where “the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional 

right.” Id. at § 2253(c)(2). To make such a showing, “[t]he petitioner must 

 * This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the 

case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its 

persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

January 14, 2019

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
2 

demonstrate that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the 

constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 

(2000). 

In his appellate brief, Davis raises a litany of issues—including that the district 

court judge should have recused himself and that the state of Kansas violated his First 

Amendment rights because of his race. Unfortunately, he did not raise any of these 

issues in his petition, and we do not consider issues raised for the first time in a COA 

application. See United States v. Moya, 676 F.3d 1211, 1213 (10th Cir. 2012); Smith v. 

Farris, 662 F. App’x 641 (10th Cir. 2016). The only question presented in his petition 

is a nonsensical one, which has nothing to do with his conviction or incarceration: 

Whether or not the socialist speech of hogwash by the Reverend King 

Martin Luther, Jr., “I had a dream” ideations coup’etat democracy 

postbellum cartel nightmare fraught with devout disfranchised 

unconstitutional confederacy democratic parties charged with carteblanche abolitionism overruling republican party capitaist federalisted 

constitutional government, reciprocal? 

ROA at 31 (misspellings in original). We, of course, construe pro se pleadings 

liberally. But Davis’s petition, in which he names “Jefferson Davis, President of the 

Confederacy” as a defendant and provides an interesting history of the Civil War, is 

indecipherable and in no way relates to his incarceration. Id. at 17–40. Because 

reasonable jurists would not find the district court’s assessment of Davis’s 

constitutional claims debatable or wrong, we must deny his application for a COA. 

Slack, 529 U.S. at 484. 
3 

CONCLUSION 

 For the foregoing reasons, Davis’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis and 

motion for a certificate of appealability are DENIED. 

Entered for the Court 

Gregory A. Phillips 

Circuit Judge