We have followed Davis in unpublished cases. See, e.g., United States v. Brame, 568 F. App'x 567, 567 (10th Cir. 2014) (unpublished) (dismissing the appeal as moot and remanding the case to district court with directions to vacate the judgment of conviction and dismiss the underlying indictment when defendant died pending direct review of a criminal appeal); United States v. Fernandez, 303 F. App'x 640, 640-41 (10th Cir. 2008) (unpublished) (same). Our sister circuits have adopted the same doctrine.
There, because appellant's brief "clearly stated that the only issue he was appealing was the propriety of the fine" levied against him, the Third Circuit found no cause to vacate his conviction. Id. ; see also United States v. Brame , 568 F. App'x 567, 567 (10th Cir. 2014) (vacating only the challenged condition of supervised release); United States v. Butler , 48 F. App'x 630, 631 (9th Cir. 2002) (vacating sentence but not conviction). We might reach a different conclusion had Mr. Lee died before submitting an opening brief—or had his brief in fact included a challenge to his conviction—as the federal authorities further suggest.