Background
Hector Caballero was convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute over five kilograms of cocaine aboard a vessel subject to United States jurisdiction. He was sentenced to 210 months of imprisonment after the district court applied a two-level enhancement for acting as a captain and granted safety-valve relief. Caballero appealed, challenging the constitutionality of the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, the captain enhancement, and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed Caballero’s constitutional challenges de novo and found them foreclosed by binding precedent, specifically United States versus Campbell and United States versus Alfonso. Regarding the captain enhancement, the court applied a clear error standard and deferred to the district court’s credibility finding that Caballero was the captain based on codefendant testimony. The court also rejected the argument for a mitigating role decrease, noting Caballero was not a low-level participant. Finally, the court found the sentence substantively reasonable as it was below the advisory guidelines range and the district court considered relevant factors.
What it means going forward
This decision reinforces the Eleventh Circuit’s stance that the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act applies extraterritorially without a nexus to the United States and confirms that district courts have broad discretion to apply role enhancements based on credible witness testimony in drug trafficking cases.