Court won’t take up OKC gang case
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will not consider the case of a convicted Oklahoma City drug trafficker who claimed a federal agent falsely speculated about his membership in the Rollin’ 90s gang.
Michael Eugene Banks, 39, had asked the high court to consider the constitutionality of testimony by FBI Special Agent Mark Schweers during Banks' 2016 trial that ended in eight convictions and a life sentence.
Over the objections of Banks’ attorney, Schweers was allowed to describe the structure of the Rollins’ 90s gang in Oklahoma City and Banks’ alleged place in its hierarchy, implying Banks was therefore a drug dealer. The judge in the case told jurors that membership in a gang is not a crime and they should only consider whether it establishes guilt in the drug and firearm crimes Banks was charged with.
Banks says the government never introduced witnesses who corroborated the agent’s testimony and it was therefore hearsay. This speculative testimony was the basis for Banks’ convictions, which should be reconsidered, he told the Supreme Court in April.
“Agent Schweers’ testimony, derived from unnamed, secondhand sources, was the very ‘glue’ necessary to make the government’s case,” Banks wrote.
The federal government opposed Banks’ request for Supreme Court review, claiming that even if Schweers unfairly implied Banks was a drug dealer, “any such testimony was immaterial to the case” because Banks’ own mother testified he sold drugs and other evidence clearly proved so.
“Any implication of drug dealing in Agent Schweers’ testimony was thus harmless,” an attorney from the U.S. solicitor general’s office wrote last month.
The Supreme Court sided with the federal government, declining without comment to consider Banks’ case Monday. As a result, a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld his convictions and life sentence will stand.