A Southern District of Florida (“SDFL”) court recently considered several commonly raised arguments by defendants charged under the MDLEA. These arguments seek to dismiss indictments on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction, alleging that the U.S. Coast Guard did not ask the appropriate questions during the initial boarding process and that the MDLEA does not apply in other nation’s maritime zones (i.e. another nations contiguous zone or exclusive economic zone).
The facts are common in the Caribbean. A Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (“LEDET”) embarked on the Royal Netherlands Navy’s HNLMS Holland interdicted a go-fast vessel (“GFV”) 108 nautical miles north of Aruba with four individuals onboard. During the right of visit (“ROV”) boarding, one defendant claimed Columbian nationality, two claimed Venezuelan nationality, and the fourth claimed Dominican Republic nationality; however, registration documentation was not located, the GFV was not flying a flag, and the master failed to provide the nationality of the vessel upon request. As such, the GFV was treated as a vessel without nationality and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. A full law enforcement boarding revealed 38 bales of cocaine. The defendants were brought to the SDFL and indicted for offenses under the MDLEA. Defendants thereafter moved to dismiss the indictment for lack of jurisdiction.
Defendants’ first argued that because the vessel was interdicted in Venezuela’s Exclusive Economic Zone (“EEZ”), the United States exceeded its authority since the MDLEA is limited to offenses occurring on the high seas. In other words, another nation state’s EEZ is not considered the “high seas” for the purpose of establishing jurisdiction under the MDLEA. The SDFL court disagreed. Relying on Eleventh Circuit precedent1United States v. McPhee, 336 F.3d 1269, 1273 (11th Cir. 2003)); United States v. Beyle, 782 F.3d 159, 167 (4th Cir. 2015) (rejecting defense arguments that because the vessel was in an EEZ “he was not on the ‘high seas’ for the purposes of U.S. law”); United States v. Rioseco, 845 F.2d 299, 300 (11th Cir. 1988) (affirming a Lacey Act conviction and recognizing that a vessel stopped by the Coast Guard “within the Bahamas’ exclusive economic zone” was in “an area of the high seas”). that included cases where the vessels were indicted in other nation’s EEZ; the Coast Guard’s primary law enforcement authority, 14 U.S.C. § 522; and 33 C.F.R. § 2.32(c), which states that high seas includes the “exclusive economic zones of the United States and other nations, as well as those waters that are seaward of territorial seas of the United States and other nations[,]” the court concluded that the high seas is defined as “all waters seaward of any nation’s twelve-mile territorial sea limit, including EEZs.”
The defendants next argued that the government failed to meet the strict requirements of § 70502(d)(1)(A)-(C) by not asking specific questions of the defendants regarding their nationality claims. The government responded by stating that the boarding officers asked all four defendants “if anyone was the master or person in charge and if anyone wish to make a claim of nationality for the vessel. All four refused.” Relying again on Eleventh Circuit precedent2United States v. Guerro, 789 F. App’x 742, 750 (11th Cir. 2019)., the court stated that “[a]ll the Coast Guard had to do here to establish statelessness, and thus jurisdiction, was to ask whether any of the defendants wished to make a claim of nationality or registry for the vessel” or alternatively, “they could have established that none of the defendants were authorized to make such a claim for the vessel.” The court held that the questioning by the LEDET to the defendants, which was summarized in statements provided during discovery, satisfied the Eleventh Circuit’s requirements, thus, the vessel was properly determined to be without nationality pursuant to § 70502(d)(1)(B)(“A ‘vessel without nationality’ is . . . (B) a vessel aboard which the master or individual in charge fails, on request of an officer of the United States authorized to enforced applicable provisions of United States law, to make a claim of nationality or registry for that vessel[.]”).
Lastly, the defendants argued that the LEDET failed to provide Miranda warnings to the defendants during the boarding and that boarding teams must “warn a defendant that their silence when questioned about the nationality of their vessel can be used against them[]” in MDLEA cases. The court concluded that: (1) “[t]his circuit has long recognized that the Coast Guard’s routine stop, boarding and inspection of an American vessel on the high seas does not normally rise to the level of custodial detention thus requiring Miranda warnings[;]”3Rioseco, 845 F.2d at 302-03. and (2) “[i]n the absence of any previously recognized constitutional right to be informed of the consequences under § 70502(d)(1) associated with claiming a nationality of a vessel, the Court finds that Miranda does not remotely stand for the stated proposition[;]” thus, the court declined “to create—for the first time—‘protections like those afforded a defendant under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)’ for Title 46.”
As a result, defendants’ motions to dismiss were denied.
The full case can be found here.
- 1United States v. McPhee, 336 F.3d 1269, 1273 (11th Cir. 2003)); United States v. Beyle, 782 F.3d 159, 167 (4th Cir. 2015) (rejecting defense arguments that because the vessel was in an EEZ “he was not on the ‘high seas’ for the purposes of U.S. law”); United States v. Rioseco, 845 F.2d 299, 300 (11th Cir. 1988) (affirming a Lacey Act conviction and recognizing that a vessel stopped by the Coast Guard “within the Bahamas’ exclusive economic zone” was in “an area of the high seas”).
- 2United States v. Guerro, 789 F. App’x 742, 750 (11th Cir. 2019).
- 3Rioseco, 845 F.2d at 302-03.