U.S. v. Sainsbury-Suarez, SAINSBURY-SUARE
| Decision Date | 25 August 1986 |
| Docket Number | 84-5883,84-5546,P,84-5545,SAINSBURY-SUARE,D,SANCHEZ-AYAL,Nos. 85-5002,s. 85-5002 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Luisefendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Luis R.edro Cortes-Castro, Jairo Sanchez-Ayala, Alvaro Escobar-Erazo, Freddie Rodriguez and Justino Cordoba-Gueirero, Defendants-Appellees. In re UNITED STATES of America, Petitioner. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jairoefendant-Appellant. Non-Argument Calendar. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Leon Kellner, U.S. Atty., David A. Doheny, David O. Leiwant, Nancy L. Worthington, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, Fla., for defendant-appellant.
John D. Lazarus, Miami, Fla., for Ayala.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, VANCE and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.
These consolidated cases include appeals by two defendants from their convictions on drug trafficking charges, a related appeal by the government on an evidentiary question, and another government appeal from a district court order permitting defendants to be released from custody pending trial. We reverse the evidentiary ruling, affirm the convictions, and dismiss the remaining appeal as moot.
Defendant Sainsbury-Suarez was captain and defendant Sanchez-Ayala a crew member of the GLOBAL CHARTER, a converted shrimper of Panamanian registry. In December 1983, the Coast Guard observed the GLOBAL CHARTER in international waters between Cuba and Hispaniola. Coast Guard officer Webber requested and obtained permission from Sainsbury to board the vessel. A lengthy and detailed search, conducted with Sainsbury's permission, initially turned up no evidence of drugs.
Finally, after several hours, an examination of one of the GLOBAL CHARTER's fuel tanks indicated that there was about 1000 cubic feet of unaccounted-for space in the tank. Webber requested permission to drill a hole through the vessel's deck into the space, but Sainsbury turned down the request. The Coast Guard eventually received permission from the Panamanian government to conduct the search, but that permission did not come until twenty hours after Sainsbury had denied permission, nearly a day and a half after the Coast Guard's initial boarding. In the interim, the GLOBAL CHARTER apparently remained under the Coast Guard's control.
The search conducted pursuant to Panama's consent turned up some 15,000 pounds of marijuana, and defendants were indicted on drug smuggling charges. The district court, however, suppressed the evidence turned up by the search, reasoning that the 20-hour delay between Sainsbury's denial of permission and the granting of permission by Panama--during which, the court found, the GLOBAL CHARTER was not free to leave--constituted an unreasonable seizure of the vessel in violation of international law. The court rejected defendants' argument that the court lacked jurisdiction because the vessel was outside the "customs waters" of the United States.
The government took an appeal from the suppression ruling (No. 84-5545), and also appealed from a district court order directing release of the defendants pending trial (No. 84-5546). Faced with the possibility of lengthy pre-trial proceedings, defendants determined that it would be more advantageous to plead guilty to the charges on condition that the suppression and jurisdictional issues be preserved for appeal (Nos. 84-5883 and 85-5002).
Defendant Sainsbury argues that the United States lacks jurisdiction over the smuggling acts charged in his indictment. His argument is that the telephonic consent of Panama to the search was not an "agreement" sufficient to bring the waters surrounding the GLOBAL CHARTER within the "customs waters" of the United States. See 21 U.S.C. Secs. 955a(c), 955b(a); 19 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(j). This precise argument was rejected in United States v. Gonzalez, 776 F.2d 931 (11th Cir.1985). Sainsbury is free to pursue the argument with the en banc court, but at this stage Gonzalez is binding.
The district court suppressed the evidence seized from the GLOBAL CHARTER on the ground that it was obtained in violation of international law. This was error. Whether or not international law was violated, the crew of a foreign vessel has no standing to complain of such a violation. In addition, there is no exclusionary rule applicable to international law violations. See United States v. Williams, 617 F.2d 1063, 1090 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc).
If the evidence is to be excluded, it must be because of a fourth amendment violation. Defendants point to the twenty-hour delay in obtaining Panama's consent, arguing that the Coast Guard's maintenance of control over the GLOBAL CHARTER during this period was an unconstitutional seizure of the vessel.
Assuming for the sake of argument that there was an unconstitutional seizure, that would not require exclusion of the evidence obtained through the later search. The Supreme Court was faced with a similar situation in Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82...
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