Background
In March two thousand twenty-one, a United States Marine Patrol Aircraft spotted a go-fast vessel in a known drug-trafficking area of international waters. The vessel carried approximately six hundred seventy-four kilograms of cocaine and had no apparent indicia of nationality, though Ecuadorian registration documents were found on board. Ecuador could neither confirm nor deny the vessel’s nationality. The three defendants were arrested, pleaded guilty to cocaine-related charges under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, and appealed their convictions and one defendant’s sentence.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed issues of subject matter jurisdiction de novo and found that the vessel qualified as without nationality under Section seven thousand five hundred two of Title forty-six of the United States Code because the claimed nation of registry did not affirmatively and unequivocally assert the vessel’s nationality. The court relied on a State Department certification stating Ecuador could neither confirm nor deny the vessel’s nationality as conclusive proof. The court also rejected constitutional challenges to the statute based on prior panel precedent. Regarding the sentence, the court applied an abuse of discretion standard and found the district court reasonably weighed mitigating circumstances against the defendant’s criminal history, noting the sentence was at the bottom of the Guidelines range.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces the Eleventh Circuit’s precedent that State Department certification is sufficient to establish subject matter jurisdiction over vessels without nationality under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, limiting the ability of defendants to challenge jurisdiction based on conflicting international law definitions.
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