United States v. Martin Caicedo Raul Medina Moreno Enrique Huilas-Cortez Ricardo Ramirez-Correra Jesus Alberto Garcia-Castro Antonio Marquez-Castro

We must decide whether the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, 46 U.S.C. app. §§ 1901-1903, can be applied, consistent with due process, to defendants apprehended aboard a “stateless” vessel on the high seas when there is no nexus between the defendants and the United States.

I. BACKGROUND

This is an appeal from the district court’s order granting a defense motion to dismiss. We accept the facts alleged by the government as true. United States v. Buckley, 689 F.2d 893, 897 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1086 , 103 S.Ct. 1778 , 76 L.Ed.2d 349 (1983).

On November 15, 1993, the United States Coast Guard apprehended the six defendants, all foreign nationals, on a thirty-five foot power boat floating dead in the water approximately 200 miles off the coast of Nicaragua and 2,000 miles from San Diego. The defendants’ boat was not registered to any nation, and it flew no nation’s flag. Before being boarded by the Coast Guard, the defendants jettisoned 2,567 pounds of cocaine into the ocean. The Coast Guard recovered the cocaine. The government acknowledges “[tjhere was no evidence that the vessel, its cargo or its crew were destined for the United States, or that any part of the…