* By agreement of the parties, Honorable Raymond Satt er is substituted for

defendant Celeste C. de Baca.

** By agreement of the parties, Aristedes Zavaras is s ubstituted for defendant Fidel Montoya.

*** The parties agree that the Attorney General for th e State of Colorado was named inadvertently in this suit and should be dism issed.

**** This order and judgment is not binding precedent, e xcept under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and col lateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and judg ments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and condi tions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

## F I L E D United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### AUG 29 2001 

### PATRICK FISHER Clerk UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

DOUGLAS EDWARD BRUCE,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v. HONORABLE RAYMOND SATTER, County Court Judge * ; ARISTEDES ZAVARAS, Denver County Sheriff ** ; ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE STATE OF COLORADO, ***

Respondents-Appellees. No. 00-1230 (D.C. No. 97-B-1774) (D. Colo.)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT ****

Before HENRY , ANDERSON , and MURPHY , Circuit Judges.-2-

After examining the briefs and appellate record, th is panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materiallyassist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). T he case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Background Petitioner Douglas Bruce was convicted in the County Court of the City and County of Denver of maintaining an unsafe building in violation of section 112(A)(6) of the Denver Building Code. At the conc lusion of the trial, the judge cited petitioner twice for contempt of court for vi olating court orders excluding certain evidence and precluding jury nullification arguments during trial. On August 3, 1995, the trial court sentenced petitione r to serve thirty days in jail and to pay $523.00 in fines and court costs on the buil ding code violation. The court suspended the jail sentence on the condition that p etitioner receive no similar violations for one year, and stayed the sentence until August 21, 1995. The court sentenced petitioner to fifteen days in jail on the contempt charges. Petitioner served seven days of his sentence for contempt befo re obtaining a stay of execution of this sentence from the state court. On August 4, 1995, petitioner brought a habeas peti tion under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and a motion for stay in federal court. The stay was denied and the habeas petition was denied without prejudice pending exhau stion of state court remedies.-3-

On August 11, 1997, the Colorado Supreme Court deni ed petitioner’s petition for writ of certiorari and, on August 14, 1997, the state court ordered petitioner to appear on August 26, 1997, to be remanded into custody. See R., doc. 5, at 1. Also on August 14, 1997, petitioner filed this peti tion for habeas corpus, requesting an immediate stay of execution of sentence. Id. , doc. 1. On August 15, 1997, the district court granted a stay pending further order of the court. Id. , doc. 2. Respondents responded to the petition an d moved to dismiss. The district court considered the petition in lightof the standard set out in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss with r espect to petitioner’s building code violation on the basis that petitione r was no longer in custody on that conviction because his sentence had expired . The court denied the rest of petitioner’s claims on the merits. After the co urt entered its order, respondents filed a motion to lift the stay of exec ution of sentence on the contempt charges, which was denied because it wouldeffectively moot petitioner’s appeal. Id. , doc. 22.1 Respondents argue that because petitioner was forme rly a licensed attorney,

he is not entitled to the liberal construction of h is pleadings afforded pro se petitioners under Haines v. Kerner , 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972) (per curiam). We need not decide whether this benefit should be w ithheld from a pro se party who is trained as an attorney, as petitioner’s clai ms of error fail under AEDPA’s high standards even when his pleadings are liberall y construed. -4- Standards of Review Petitioner, representing himself, appeals from the denial of his petition for habeas relief. 1 To proceed on appeal, petitioner must first secur e a certificate of appealability (COA). See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1). The district court denied petitioner’s application for a COA and petitioner h as therefore filed a request for a COA with this court. Respondents have filed a brief in opposition to petitioner’s application for a COA. “A certificate of appealability may issue . . . only if the applicant has made a substa ntial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” Id. § 2253(c)(2). To make that showing, petitioner must demonstrate “that reasonable jurists could deb ate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been r esolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel , 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (quotation omitted).-5-

This court recently reiterated the revised standard s of review set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1): The Supreme Court . . . elucidated the opaque langu age of § 2254(d)(1) in Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362, [402-13] (2000) (opinion of O’Connor, J.). Speaking for a majorityof the Court in her separate concurring opinion, Justice O’Connor n oted the AEDPA allows a federal court to grant habeas relief under§ 2254(d)(1) only if the relevant state-court decision was either “co ntrary to” or “an unreasonable application of” established Supreme Co urt precedent. See id. at [404-05]. As for § 2254(d)(1)’s “contrary to” clause, Justice O’Connor noted that a state-court decision would be contrary to the Court’s clearly established precedent in two circumstances: (1) “the state court applies a rule that contradict s the governing law set forth in [the Court’s] cases”; or (2) “the stat e court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result di fferent from” the result reached by the Supreme Court. Id. at [405, 406]. Under the “unreasonable application” clause, on the other han d, a federal habeas court may grant the writ only if “the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the] Court’ s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Id. at [413]. To be clear, “[u]nder § 2254(d)(1)’s ‘unreasonable application’ clause . . ., a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision app lied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Id. at [411]. Thomas v. Gibson , 218 F.3d 1213, 1219-20 (10th Cir. 2000). To the extent that the state court has not addressed the merits of a c laim and “the federal district court made its own determination in the first instance,” this court reviews “the district court’s conclusions of law de novo and its findings of fact, if any, for clear error.” LaFevers v. Gibson , 182 F.3d 705, 711 (10th Cir. 1999).-6- Issues on Appeal Contrary to petitioner’s protestations, his pleadin gs are not clear. To the extent that we can make out his arguments on appeal , they are: (1) the district court should have held a hearing on the petition, b ecause the court did not allow petitioner to file an expanded petition form to ful ly set out his claims, failed to inform petitioner that he should attach relevant do cuments to his petition, and improperly required petitioner to meet his burden o f proof in his written pleadings; (2) the district court improperly deniedreview of the building code violation on the incorrect finding that there was n o operable stay of execution of sentence and petitioner’s sentence had expired by p assage of time; (3) the state court’s contempt citations were substantively and p rocedurally illegal and false because he did not violate a specific, clear, and l awful order, and the hearing was improperly delayed until three weeks after the find ings of contempt; (4) the district court improperly denied petitioner any chance to prove that his three motions to disqualify the trial judge and his otherpretrial motions were wrongfully rejected; (5) the building code section petitioner was convicted of violating is unconstitutional and the citation was defective because it did not inform petitioner what the violation was; (6) petit ioner was denied his right to a state court record in this case because the state trial judge relied on rulings made in an earlier state case, for which no record exists; (7) the prosecutor-7-

suborned perjury by leading his witness to say ther e were no later citations of petitioner when he was present at the later citatio n, by suppressing exonerating material not furnished during discovery, and by off ering to dismiss the charge if petitioner would sell him the building for one doll ar; (8) the entry by officials into petitioner’s empty building violated the Fourth Ame ndment, the evidence discovered during this search should be suppressed, and the building code violation based on that evidence cannot stand; (9) the district court should have issued a COA; (10) the district court mistreated th e jury by failing to make a complete record of the proceedings, by rushing th e trial, and by coercing the jurors; (11) the prosecution’s chief witness was un der the influence of drugs; (12) the Building Department did not treat petition er’s building as unsafe; (13) the trial court ignored petitioner’s complaintduring voir dire that he could not hear and cut off petitioner’s voir dire; (14) the trial judge forced petitioner into an early trial for which he was not prepared; (15) the district court’s failure to hold a hearing violated petitioner’s right to Du e Process.
Analysis The district court dismissed petitioner’s claims re lating to the building code violation on the basis that petitioner had notshown that his sentence on that charge had been stayed and that he was still in cus tody for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 at the time his petition was filed. We agre e. Although neither the state-8-

courts’ orders nor the federal court’s orders are c ompletely clear when read individually, our review of the orders identified b y the parties persuades us that it is petitioner’s sentence on the contempt ch arges that remained stayed. See, e.g. , R., doc. 22. Petitioner did not demonstrate thathis sentence on the building code violation had not expired, and we rej ect his arguments related to the building code violation for substantially the s ame reasons as set forth by the district court in its order. The district court thoroughly addressed the merits of petitioner’s arguments relating to the contempt citations, his motions to disqualify the trial judge, his other pretrial motions, and his request for a h earing in the district court. R., doc. 17, at 13-19, 19-23, 23-24, 25-26. On the se matters, we are unpersuaded by petitioner’s conclusory allegations of error, an d deny a COA for substantially the same reasons as those set forth by the districtcourt in its order. To the extent petitioner is attempting to raise new arguments on appeal related to any of these issues, we need not address them. Singleton v. Wulff , 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976). Petitioner’s remaining arguments are deemed waived. First, petitioner fails to point out where these issues were raised in the district court, as required by 10th Cir. R. 28.2(C)(2). Moreover, even if the iss ues were raised in the district court and preserved for appeal, petitioner fails to make reasoned arguments supported by citation to legal authorities, as requ ired by Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(9);-9-

see also Brownlee v. Lear Siegler Mgmt. Servs. Corp. , 15 F.3d 976, 977-78 (10th Cir. 1994). In addition, petitioner fails to support his arguments with adequate citation to the district court or state co urt records. We will not sift through this case’s voluminous record to find suppo rt for petitioner’s arguments. United States v. LaHue , 254 F.3d 900, 924 (10th Cir. 2001) (quotation omi tted). The application for a certificate of appealability (COA) is denied and the appeal is DISMISSED. The mandate shall issue f orthwith.

Entered for the Court

Michael R. Murphy Circuit Judge