UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

ANTONE LAMANDINGO KNOX, 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

TOMMY SHARP, Interim Warden, 

 Respondent - Appellee. 

No. 20-7005 

(D.C. No. 6:19-CV-00096-RAW-KEW) 

(E.D. Okla.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *

_________________________________ 

Before LUCERO, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Antone Knox, an Oklahoma prisoner proceeding pro se,1

 seeks a certificate of 

appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s order denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 

petition. For the reasons explained below, we deny his request and dismiss this 

matter. 

Knox has been an inmate in the Oklahoma prison system since 2002. He 

asserts that in that time, he has periodically applied for and been denied parole. In 

February 2019, he filed a § 2241 petition in the Western District of Oklahoma. 

 * This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the 

case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But it may be cited for its persuasive value. 

See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1; 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

1

 We liberally construe Knox’s pro se filings. But we neither act as his 

advocate nor excuse his failure to follow procedural rules. See Yang v. Archuleta, 525 

F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008). 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

April 16, 2020

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court
2 

Construed liberally, Knox’s petition claimed that (1) the parole board violated his 

First Amendment rights, including his right to access the courts, and his Fourteenth 

Amendment right to due process by refusing to provide him with the record of his 

parole denials and transcripts, (2) the retroactive application of Oklahoma’s Truth in 

Sentencing Act and other parole procedures to his sentence violated the Ex Post 

Facto clause, and (3) he was wrongfully denied parole in violation of his due-process 

rights. 

Shortly after Knox filed his petition, a magistrate judge in the Western District 

of Oklahoma recommended that the district court transfer Knox’s petition to the 

Eastern District of Oklahoma because § 2241 petitions “must be filed in the district 

where the prisoner is confined” and Knox is confined in the Eastern District of 

Oklahoma. Bradshaw v. Story, 86 F.3d 164, 166 (10th Cir. 1996). Over Knox’s 

objections, the district court transferred the case. 

The respondent then filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Knox failed to 

state a claim and, alternatively, that Knox impermissibly split his claims by raising 

substantially similar issues in two previous habeas petitions. The district court 

granted the motion to dismiss, agreeing that Knox failed to state a claim. 

Specifically, the district court noted that Knox’s “petition is difficult to read and 

understand” and determined that Knox had “presented no arguments, authorities, or 

specifics showing how he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or the laws or 

treaties of the United States” or “how his sentence is being executed in an 

unconstitutional manner.” R. 85–86. The district court also concluded that a request 
3 

for “parole records is not appropriate in a habeas petition” and that, regardless, 

respondent “is not the custodian of those records.” Id. at 86. Finally, the district court 

denied Knox a COA. 

Knox now asks us to issue a COA so he can appeal the district court’s order. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A); Montez v. McKinna, 208 F.3d 862, 869 (10th Cir. 

2000) (applying § 2253(c)(1)(A)’s COA requirement to § 2241 petitions). As the 

district court determined that Knox’s petition stated no constitutional claims, we may 

grant a COA only if Knox “demonstrate[s] that reasonable jurists would find the 

district court’s assessment of [his] constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack v. 

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). 

In attempting to make such a demonstration, Knox first argues that the district 

court incorrectly concluded that the respondent need not provide his parole records 

because the respondent is not the custodian of those records. He notes that “the 

proper respondent in a habeas petition is the petitioner’s custodian” and explains that 

he “ha[d] no choice [but] to name the warden.” Aplt. Br. 6 (first quoting Harris v. 

Champion, 51 F.3d 901, 906 (10th Cir. 1995), superseded on other grounds by 

statute, Fed. Courts Improvement Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-317, 110 Stat. 3847 

(1996)). Knox also contends that the respondent’s attorney had the “authority” and 

“power to obtain” his records. Id. at 4. But even if these statements are true, Knox 

does not address the district court’s reason for denying his records-request claim: that 

a § 2241 petition is not an appropriate mechanism to request documents because 

“[h]abeas corpus review is available under § 2241 if one is ‘in custody in violation of 
4 

the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States’” and a denial of a records 

request, even if improper, does not meet that standard. McIntosh v. U.S. Parole 

Comm’n, 115 F.3d 809, 811 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting § 2241(c)(3)). Thus, we 

decline to issue Knox a COA on this basis. 

Knox next reasserts his contention that he has been illegally denied parole, 

impliedly arguing that reasonable jurists could debate the district court’s 

determination on this constitutional claim because the district court ignored this 

argument. It is true, as Knox points out, that “a state parole statute can create a 

liberty interest when the statute’s language and structure sufficiently limits the 

discretion of a parole board.” Boutwell v. Keating, 399 F.3d 1203, 1213 (10th Cir. 

2005). But even if we were to assume that the Oklahoma parole statute creates a 

liberty interest, Knox did not explain to the district court and does not explain to us 

how any of his parole denials violate his due-process rights with respect to that 

liberty interest. For example, he states that he is illegally being held in a supermax 

prison, which he explains impacts his eligibility for parole, but he does not explain 

how his placement in a supermax prison is illegal.2

 We therefore decline to issue a 

COA on this basis. 

 2

 In a similar vein, Knox argues due process requires parole authorities to 

“fu[r]nish to the prisoner a statement of its reasons for denial of parole.” Aplt. Br. 15 

(quoting Vann v. Angelone, 73 F.3d 519, 522 (4th Cir. 1996)). But in doing so, Knox 

relies on a case interpreting the Virginia parole statute. We have found no similar 

requirement in Oklahoma law requiring the parole board to give reasons for its 

decisions. 
5 

Knox further argues that we should grant him a COA because of misconduct 

and procedural irregularities that occurred in the district court. For example, Knox 

alleged that the district court was biased and that the district-court judge should have 

recused himself. But his accusations are nothing more than bare conclusions, and he 

fails to detail any of the conduct underlying his allegations. Knox also contends that 

the district court should have granted him discovery and a hearing. But these 

contentions amount to further requests for his parole records. And, as noted above, a 

§ 2241 petition is not an appropriate vehicle for requesting records. 

Accordingly, reasonable jurists could not “find the district court’s assessment 

of [Knox’s] constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484. We 

therefore deny Knox’s request for a COA and dismiss this matter. 

Entered for the Court 

Nancy L. Moritz 

Circuit Judge