On 13 June 2023, we looked at a Southern District of Florida case where Magistrate Judge Torres decided that the U.S. Government violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a)(1)(B) for an “unnecessary” 11-day delay in presenting defendants to a magistrate judge following a MDLEA interdiction by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). Well, just over a week later, Magistrate Judge Torres took a different approach and found that a ten-day voyage in which defendants were transferred to three different USCG Cutters (CGC) did not constitute an unnecessary delay in violation of Rule 5. So, what’s the major difference between his decision in U.S. v. Henriquez, et al. and his decision on 4 May 2023 in U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, No. 22-20473-CR, 2023 WL 3980082 (S.D. Fla. May 4, 2023)?1Magistrate Judge Torres’s report and recommendation was adopted by District Court Judge Gayles in its entirety on 13 June 2023. The full citation is, U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, No. 22-20473-CR, 2023 WL 3980082 (S.D. Fla. May 4, 2023), report and recommendation adopted sub nom. U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, et al., No. 22-20473-CR, 2023 WL 3971129 (S.D. Fla. June 13, 2023). Let’s take a look.
The initial interdiction in U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus is similar to U.S. v. Henriquez. However, what happened after the interdiction is where the two cases start to diverge. On 10 September 2022, the CGC Legare interdicted a go-fast vessel (GFV) approximately 145 nautical miles south of Isla Beata, a small island in the Caribbean Sea that is part of the Dominican Republic. The vessel was treated as a “vessel without nationality” pursuant to 46 U.S.C. § 70502(d)(1)(B) after the master of the vessel, defendant Iona-DeJesus, failed to make a claim of nationality for the vessel upon request of the CG boarding officer. The GFV contained approximately 540 kilograms of cocaine, which was transferred to CGC Legare with the defendants.
Two days after the interdiction, on 12 September 2022, CGC Legare entered the Windward Passage (a strait between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola) and the defendants were transferred to CGC Dauntless. While traversing the Windward Passage, on 14 September 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that the venue for the prosecution would be Southern District of Florida (SDFL) and a DEA agent was assigned to case. At that time, “the USCG determined a travel plan that would allow for Defendants to be promptly brought to Miami without jeopardizing the mission objectives of [CGC] Dauntless.” To that end, on 17 September 2022, defendants where transferred to another ship, CGC Spencer, which was also patrolling the Windward Passage. The total time from interdiction to being delivered to the case agent in Miami was about ten days.
When reviewing whether this ten-day voyage violated Fed. R. Crim. P. Rule 5(a)(1)(B), Magistrate Judge Torres applied the Purvis factors discussed in our prior post. Concerning the first factor, the court noted the following:
Defendants were captured . . . some 700 miles from Miami as the crow flies. And it is worth noting at this juncture that, in these MDLEA cases, it is the policy of the USCG to complete its mission with its detainees on board rather than cancel its operational plans and then bring the detainees to the United States as quickly as possible. The USCG’s predetermined route can be, and often is, indirect. It therefore understandably takes some time for detainees like Defendants to reach our shores . . . Although the route taken was somewhat indirect, we cannot say that this factor weighs against the Government in light of the USCG’s need to meet its mission obligations while transporting Defendants to this Court.
Iona-Dejesus, 2023 WL 3980082, at *4. Similarly, the remaining factors did not weigh against the government. In particular, with regard to the fourth factor, Magistrate Judge Torres stated that it did not weigh against the government for two reasons:
First, the Department of Justice needed time to determine where Defendants’ case would be prosecuted and to coordinate travel plans with the USCG. This took no more than five days. Second, the USCG needed to meet their mission objectives while simultaneously ferrying Defendants to Miami. As a result, Defendants spent ten days at sea on three different ships before being delivered to the federal courthouse in Miami. Neither of these reasons can weigh against the Government.
Id. So, what did the Coast Guard do right here and wrong in U.S. v. Henriquez? A closer look at the court’s analysis reveals the key distinction. In U.S. v. Henriquez, the Coast Guard opted to transfer the defendants to different vessels with the specific intent of avoiding their entry into territorial waters and thereby preventing the activation of the defendants’ constitutional rights. This decision was made despite the fact that the CGC carrying the defendants was already en route to a port where a federal court was located and the defendants could have been presented to a magistrate judge there without unnecessary delay.
Conversely, in U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, although the Coast Guard also transferred the defendants to multiple cutters, this action was undertaken primarily to ensure the successful completion of the Coast Guard’s mission in the Windward Passage with minimal disruptions. In other words, the aim was to maintain the operational integrity of the Coast Guard’s objectives, rather than a deliberate attempt to circumvent any Constitutional rights of the defendants.
Take-away: What’s the take-away here? Well, if there is an opportunity to bring defendants to a federal court because they are already on an asset heading in that direction or without significantly altering or delaying a patrol/mission, then the government should do exactly that and avoid transferring them solely to evade the “activation” of Constitutional rights. If you do decide to transfer defendants to other assets to purposely avoid entering U.S. territorial seas and the case ends before Magistrate Judge Torres, he will likely find that the government is in violation of Fed. R. Crim. P. Rule 5(a)(1)(B) for failing to present the individuals on the interdicted vessel without unnecessary delay.
The full decision can be found here.
- 1Magistrate Judge Torres’s report and recommendation was adopted by District Court Judge Gayles in its entirety on 13 June 2023. The full citation is, U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, No. 22-20473-CR, 2023 WL 3980082 (S.D. Fla. May 4, 2023), report and recommendation adopted sub nom. U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus, et al., No. 22-20473-CR, 2023 WL 3971129 (S.D. Fla. June 13, 2023).