CRIP Gang Leader's 55 Year Prison Sentence to Stand

Notorious Crip Gang Leader Bobby Banks' attempt to overturn his convictions on drug and other charges was shot down by an appeals court. From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette- (Click here for a previous posting about Banks)



Appeals court: Gang leader’s convictions stay

Bobby Glenn Banks’ complaints of trial fail to sway federal panel

By Linda Satter

Saturday, July 21, 2007

LITTLE ROCK — A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld last year’s drug-trafficking and police-intimidation convictions of Bobby Glenn Banks, a well-known former gang leader in Little Rock who is serving a 55-year sentence.

After Banks’ conviction, then-U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins described him as someone whose criminal activities “have plagued this community for years,” as he operated a drug business “through a system of gang-related threats, intimidation and violence.”

Police breathed a sigh of relief upon learning of the conviction, citing Banks’ position of several years as the reputed leader of the 23rd Street Crips, also known as the Wolfe Street Crips, and his notoriety dating to 1994, when he was featured prominently in an HBO documentary on the city’s growing problem with street gangs.

On Feb. 7, 2006, a federal jury convicted Banks, now 31, of multiple charges related to a drug-trafficking conspiracy that originally included 16 other defendants and a single charge of threatening a Little Rock police officer who had trailed him for years.

U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr., who died earlier this year, sentenced Banks on July 21, 2006, to 55 years in prison.

In appealing his convictions and sentence, Banks raised four issues. He first argued that Howard failed to remedy a discovery violation that occurred when prosecutors failed to provide his lawyer with a copy of audio recordings. However, the threejudge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument, noting that the lawyer acknowledged he had received transcripts of the recordings and failed to take advantage of an opportunity to review the materials before trial.

Banks also complained that the judge should not have let jurors see a letter containing two references to the “Crips,” but the panel said the argument lacked merit because the references were fleeting, vague and not emphasized by prosecutors.

Banks also argued that Howard should have compelled threewitnesses to appear on his behalf midway through the trial. The panel noted that Banks’ lawyer, Ron Nichols, did not follow proper procedures to ensure the witnesses’ presence and that the judge nevertheless tried to accommodate the request until learning that doing so would delay the trial unnecessarily, especially when Nichols did not explain how the witnesses were material to Banks’ defense.

Finally, Banks disputed the amount of drugs, particularly cocaine, linked to him through testimony and used to calculate his sentence. The appellate panel rejected that argument as well, saying the total quantity from witness accounts equaled about 2.8 kilograms, well above the 1.5 kilograms that the government sought to attribute to Banks. The panel also noted that Howardpostponed the sentencing hearing to allow Banks to contest the amounts in writing.

The panel included U.S. Circuit judges Roger Wollman of Sioux Falls, S.D.; Arlen Beam of Lincoln, Neb.; and Steven M. Colloton of Des Moines, Iowa.