Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-14-04542/USCOURTS-ca3-14-04542-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Frederick H. Banks
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

____________

No. 14-4542

____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

FREDERICK H. BANKS,

 Appellant

____________

On Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(W.D. Pa. No. 2-03-cr-00245-001)

District Judge: Honorable Nora B. Fischer

____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

June 1, 2015

Before: FISHER, JORDAN and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: June 17, 2015)

____________

OPINION*

____________

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 

does not constitute binding precedent.

Case: 14-4542 Document: 003111993001 Page: 1 Date Filed: 06/17/2015
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FISHER, Circuit Judge.

Frederick Banks appeals the revocation of his term of supervised release and two 

collateral rulings of the United States District Court for the Western District of 

Pennsylvania. We will dismiss the appeal in part and affirm in part.

I.

We write principally for the parties, who are familiar with the factual context and 

legal history of this case. Therefore, we will set forth only those facts that are necessary 

to our analysis.

In 2005, Banks was convicted in the United States District Court for the Western 

District of Pennsylvania of a series of charges arising from a scheme in which he sold 

pirated versions of copyrighted software (the “03-245 case”). He was sentenced to sixty 

months of incarceration and three years of supervised release. We affirmed his conviction 

and sentence.1In 2006, Banks was convicted of a series of mail fraud charges in a 

separate prosecution in the Western District of Pennsylvania (the “04-176 case”). He 

received a sentence of sixty-three months of incarceration and three years of supervised 

release; the terms of incarceration in the two cases ran consecutively, but the terms of 

supervised release ran concurrently. We affirmed that conviction and sentence as well.2

In 2013, after being released from incarceration and beginning his terms of 

supervised release, the Probation Office filed petitions against Banks in both the 03-245 

 

1 United States v. Vampire Nation, 451 F.3d 189 (3d Cir. 2006).

2 United States v. Banks, 300 F. App’x 145 (3d Cir. 2008).

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and 04-176 cases alleging that he had committed wire fraud and aggravated identity theft 

by submitting false financial information and other persons’ personal identifying 

information in four applications to open accounts on a foreign exchange trading website. 

The commission of a federal crime violated the conditions of his supervised release terms 

and justified revocation of his supervised release. The District Court stayed the petition in 

this case, the 03-245 case, while the petition proceeded in the 04-176 case. Banks was 

found to have violated the conditions of his supervised release in that case, and his 

supervised release was revoked. Banks was sentenced to fourteen months of incarceration

and six months of supervised release at a community correctional center. We affirmed the 

revocation of his supervised release and his sentence.3

The District Court then proceeded to adjudicate the revocation proceeding in this 

case. Banks waived his right to counsel, and the District Court allowed him to proceed 

pro se with standby counsel. The parties agreed that the District Court should decide the 

petition on the record created in the 04-176 case. After considering that record, the 

District Court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Banks had committed the 

federal crimes of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and that Banks’s supervised 

release should be revoked. The court sentenced Banks to time served and no further term 

of supervised release, although the supervised release term imposed in the 04-176 case 

would remain in effect. Banks timely appealed.

 

3 United States v. Banks, 572 F. App’x 162 (3d Cir. 2014).

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II.

We begin by addressing our jurisdiction to hear this appeal. Under Article III of 

the Constitution, we only have the power to hear live cases or controversies. A case or 

controversy must exist at each stage of the litigation, including appellate review.4 When 

the revocation of supervised release is challenged, “a litigant who is unconditionally 

released from custody must show that she will, in fact, suffer collateral consequences 

from the supervised release revocation to present a live case or controversy.”5

In this case, Banks received only time served and no further term of supervised 

release as a result of the revocation of his supervised release. Although Banks is still 

subject to a term of supervised release, it is in the 04-176 case. Accordingly, because 

Banks is not subject to a term of custody in this case and he cannot show any collateral 

consequences from the revocation of this case’s term of supervised release,6 no live case 

or controversy exists with respect to his challenge to the revocation of his supervised 

release. Therefore, we must dismiss his appeal to the extent he challenges the revocation 

of his supervised release.

 

4 United States v. Huff, 703 F.3d 609, 611 (3d Cir. 2013). That the United States 

did not raise this issue is irrelevant. We must assure ourselves of jurisdiction regardless 

of whether a party raises it. See United States v. Weatherspoon, 696 F.3d 416, 421 (3d 

Cir. 2012).

5 Huff, 703 F.3d at 612.

6 Even were this revocation to be vacated, the revocation for the same conduct in 

the 04-176 case has already been affirmed and is final. Any hypothetical collateral 

consequences that arose already arose when Banks’s supervised release was revoked in 

the 04-176 case.

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However, Banks also challenges two collateral rulings the District Court made in 

adjudicating the petition to revoke his supervised release. First, he complains that the 

United States has taken and not returned two cars he purchased, a Ferrari and a BMW. 

The District Court found that the United States did not possess the Ferrari, and that 

finding is not clearly erroneous. And Banks did not bring up the alleged taking of the 

BMW before the District Court, so we will not consider it. Second, Banks complains 

about the alleged existence of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant for 

electronic surveillance directed at him. The District Court found that, aside from Banks’s 

uncorroborated assertion, there was no evidence that such a warrant existed, and that 

finding is also not clearly erroneous.7

Therefore, we will dismiss Banks’s appeal in part and affirm in part.

 

7 Banks also attached several documents in this appeal, but none provides a basis 

for relief. For instance, Banks submits documents that contest the District Court’s denial 

of his request for compensation for having been imprisoned on the basis of a 

supplemental petition submitted by the Probation Office. This argument is frivolous, as 

he served no jail time on the basis of the supplemental petition, and in any event, as we 

have informed Banks at least twice before, he is unable to “assert civil claims for 

damages in [a] criminal case.” United States v. Banks, 582 F. App’x 86, 87 (3d Cir. 2014)

(per curiam). Banks also attaches a series of documents pertaining to his earlier failed 

attempts to disqualify the U.S. Attorney’s Office from this case. Any effort to appeal 

rulings on this subject are untimely.

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