Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03107/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03107-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Javier Eduardo Juan Ballestas
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 12, 2015 Decided July 28, 2015

No. 13-3107

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

JAVIER EDUARDO JUAN BALLESTAS, ALSO KNOWN AS EL 

MONO,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:11-cr-00050-6)

Marie L. Park, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant.

Scott A.C. Meisler, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief was 

Meredith Mills, Trial Counsel. John A. Romano, Trial 

Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, 

entered appearances.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and SRINIVASAN and 

WILKINS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

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SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Javier Eduardo Juan 

Ballestas, a Colombian citizen, was indicted under the 

Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) and

extradited to the United States for prosecution. Ballestas 

pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute drugs 

“on board . . . a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United 

States,” in violation of the MDLEA. 46 U.S.C. §§ 70503(a), 

70506(b). He reserved the right to bring an appeal on certain 

issues, including whether the MDLEA’s conspiracy provision 

reaches extraterritorially to encompass his charged conduct in 

Colombia, and whether the application of the MDLEA against 

him violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment 

because of the absence of an adequate nexus between his 

conduct and the United States. Because we are unpersuaded 

by Ballestas’s arguments on those and other issues, we affirm.

I.

A long-term investigation conducted by United States 

and Colombian officials uncovered an international drugtrafficking operation based in Colombia. The organization 

used stateless vessels to transport large quantities of cocaine 

from Colombia through international waters, ultimately 

destined for the United States. Email and phone surveillance 

revealed that Ballestas supported the organization’s drug 

smuggling activities. He provided maps and law enforcement 

reports purporting to reveal the location of United States, 

Colombian, and other nations’ air and maritime forces in the

vicinity of the Caribbean Sea at specific times. Vessels 

engaged in trafficking runs used those reports to evade 

detection and capture.

Between May 2008 and September 2010, law 

enforcement agents seized or attempted to seize eight of the 

organization’s cocaine shipments. Intercepted 

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communications linked Ballestas to at least four of the seized

shipments, which together accounted for thousands of 

kilograms of seized cocaine. 

The government sought indictment of Ballestas and six 

co-conspirators for violating the MDLEA, 46 U.S.C. 

§§ 70501 et seq. The MDLEA provides that an “individual 

may not knowingly or intentionally manufacture or distribute, 

or possess with intent to manufacture or distribute, a 

controlled substance on board . . . a vessel subject to the 

jurisdiction of the United States,” id. § 70503(a), or attempt or 

conspire to do the same, id. § 70506(b). The statute defines a 

“vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” to 

include “vessel[s] without nationality.” Id. § 70502(c)(1)(A). 

See generally United States v. Miranda, 780 F.3d 1185 (D.C. 

Cir. 2015). 

In February, 2011, a federal grand jury returned an 

indictment charging Ballestas with conspiring to distribute 

drugs “on board . . . a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the 

United States” in violation of the MDLEA. See 46 U.S.C. 

§§ 70503(a), 70506(b). Ballestas was arrested in Colombia 

and extradited to the United States to stand trial. 

In September, 2012, Ballestas filed a motion to dismiss 

the indictment. He contended that the MDLEA’s conspiracy 

provision did not extend extraterritorially to reach individuals 

(like Ballestas) who never came “on board” the relevant 

vessels. Id. § 70503(a). Ballestas also argued that applying

the MDLEA against him violated the Due Process Clause 

because of the absence of a nexus between his conduct and 

the United States.

In response to Ballestas’s motion, the government 

proffered facts supporting the conspiracy charge. Two boats 

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in particular, the government submitted, supported Ballestas’s

prosecution under the MDLEA for conspiring to distribute 

drugs on board a vessel without nationality. First, a boat 

intercepted in international waters near Panama on March 3, 

2010, displayed no visible flag and held no valid registration. 

Second, another boat, seized in Panamanian waters on March 

11, 2010, similarly had no flag or registration. Officials 

observed the vessel in international waters, pursued the vessel 

into Panamanian waters, and then seized it. According to the 

government’s proffer, Ballestas provided assistance with the 

cocaine shipments aboard both of those vessels.

Several months after responding to the motion to dismiss, 

the government informed Ballestas that the crew members 

apprehended during the March 3rd seizure had been charged 

and convicted under the MDLEA in the Middle District of 

Florida. The government provided Ballestas with the docket 

number and name of that case. 

In February 2013, the district court denied Ballestas’s

motion to dismiss the indictment. The court concluded that 

the conspiracy provision of the MDLEA applied 

extraterritorially to Ballestas’s actions in Colombia. Physical 

presence “on board” a vessel, the district court held, is not an 

essential element of a conspiracy offense under the MDLEA. 

The court further held that the vessels apprehended on March 

3rd and 11th qualified as stateless vessels “subject to the 

jurisdiction of the United States.” 46 U.S.C. § 70502(c)(1). 

In addition, the court rejected Ballestas’s due process 

challenge, finding that there is no requirement to show a 

nexus to the United States when the alleged crimes involve 

stateless vessels.

Ballestas sought reconsideration of the district court’s

denial of his motion to dismiss. He argued that certain 

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intervening decisions undermined the court’s 

extraterritoriality and due process holdings. The district court 

denied the motion for reconsideration, and, shortly thereafter,

Ballestas pleaded guilty to a superseding information. In 

connection with Ballestas’s sentence, the superseding 

information omitted certain drug quantity specifications that 

had appeared in the indictment in order to avoid triggering a 

ten-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment.

Ballestas’s plea agreement reserved his right to appeal 

“the specific and limited issue” of the denial of his motion to 

dismiss and motion for reconsideration. App. 192. The 

agreement also preserved his right to appeal his sentence on 

the grounds that it “exceeds the maximum permitted by 

statute or results from an upward departure from the guideline 

range established by the Court at sentencing.” Id. at 193. In 

connection with his plea agreement, Ballestas and the 

government entered a joint statement of stipulated facts. 

Those facts established Ballestas’s awareness of and 

involvement with the vessel interdicted on March 3rd and also 

established that the vessel was “without nationality” and

therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Id. at

181-82. The district court accepted Ballestas’s plea after 

conducting a colloquy in accordance with Federal Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 11.

In November 2013, the district court calculated 

Ballestas’s sentencing guidelines range to be seventy to 

eighty-seven months based on the quantity of drugs stipulated 

to have been recovered from the March 3rd vessel. The court 

sentenced Ballestas to a below-guidelines sentence of sixtyfour months of imprisonment followed by three years of

supervised release. Ballestas now appeals, challenging the 

denial of his motion to dismiss, the denial of his motion for 

reconsideration, and his sentence.

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II.

A.

Ballestas first contends that the MDLEA’s conspiracy 

provision does not apply extraterritorially to reach his conduct 

in Colombia. We disagree.

The MDLEA’s conspiracy provision, 46 U.S.C. 

§ 70506(b), provides that a “person attempting or conspiring 

to violate section 70503 of this title is subject to the same 

penalties as provided for violating section 70503.” The 

underlying substantive offense set forth in § 70503 prohibits 

“knowingly or intentionally manufactur[ing] or distribut[ing], 

or possess[ing] with intent to distribute, a controlled 

substance on board,” inter alia, “a vessel subject to the 

jurisdiction of the United States,” id. § 70503(a), which 

includes “a vessel without nationality,” id. § 70502(c)(1)(A).

In arguing that the MDLEA’s conspiracy provision fails 

to reach extraterritorially, Ballestas relies on two canons of 

statutory interpretation. First, he invokes the presumption 

against extraterritoriality, which dictates that, “[w]hen a 

statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial 

application, it has none.” Morrison v. Nat’l Austl. Bank Ltd., 

561 U.S. 247, 255 (2010). Second, he relies on the so-called 

Charming Betsy canon, which takes its name from a decision 

in which the Supreme Court explained that “an act of 

Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of 

nations if any other possible construction remains.” Murray 

v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118 

(1804). 

Each of those “principle[s],” however, “represents a 

canon of construction, or a presumption about a statute’s 

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meaning, rather than a limit upon Congress’s power to 

legislate.” Morrison, 561 U.S. at 255. Thus, notwithstanding 

the presumption against extraterritoriality, a statute will be 

construed to apply extraterritorially if Congress gives a “clear 

indication” of that intention. Id. With regard to the 

Charming Betsy canon, similarly, if “a statute makes plain 

Congress’s intent,” a court “must enforce the intent of 

Congress irrespective of whether the statute conforms to 

customary international law.” United States v. Yousef, 327 

F.3d 56, 93 (2d Cir. 2003). After all, “Congress is not bound 

by international law,” so “it may legislate with respect to 

conduct outside the United States, in excess of the limits 

posed by international law.” Id. at 86. 

Here, the extraterritorial reach of the MDLEA’s 

substantive prohibitions is clear. Section 70503(b), entitled 

“extension beyond territorial jurisdiction,” provides that 

§ 70503(a), which sets forth the substantive prohibitions, 

“applies even though the act is committed outside the 

territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” 46 U.S.C. 

§ 70503(b). That straightforward expression of 

extraterritorial application settles the extraterritorial reach of 

§ 70503(a).

Ballestas, however, attempts to draw a line between the 

extraterritorial reach of the MDLEA’s substantive offense in

§ 70503(a) and the reach of the MDLEA’s conspiracy offense 

in § 70506(b). He relies on the understanding that, “[w]hen a 

statute provides for some extraterritorial application, the 

presumption against extraterritoriality operates to limit that 

provision to its terms.” Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 

133 S. Ct. 1659, 1667 (2013) (quoting Morrison, 561 U.S. at 

265). In Ballestas’s view, the MDLEA’s extraterritorial 

application therefore should be confined to the substantive 

prohibitions set forth in § 70503(a), and should not extend to

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conspiracy (or attempt) to commit those substantive crimes 

under § 70506. We are unpersuaded.

Under the presumption against extraterritoriality, the

extraterritorial reach of a particular provision will not 

necessarily be imputed to an entire statute. But in the 

particular context of “an ancillary offense like aiding and 

abetting or conspiracy,” we have held that, “[g]enerally, the 

extraterritorial reach of [the] ancillary offense . . . is 

coterminous with that of the underlying criminal statute.” 

United States v. Ali, 718 F.3d 929, 939 (D.C. Cir. 2013). As a 

result, “when the underlying criminal statute’s extraterritorial 

reach is unquestionable, the presumption [against 

extraterritoriality] is rebutted with equal force” for ancillary 

offenses in the same statute. Id.; see United States v. Hill, 279 

F.3d 731, 739 (9th Cir. 2002). Here, because the substantive 

offense established in § 70503(a) applies extraterritorially, we 

conclude that conspiracy to commit that substantive offense

under § 70506 also has extraterritorial reach. And with the 

extraterritorial reach of the conspiracy provision clearly

established, we have no occasion to apply the Charming Betsy

canon.

Our decision in United States v. Ali is highly instructive. 

Ali faced two sets of conspiracy charges. First, he was 

charged under the blanket conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, 

with conspiracy to commit piracy. The generic conspiracy 

provision, we observed, lacks affirmative indication of an 

intention to reach extraterritorially. Because the provision is

“ambiguous as to [its] application abroad,” we applied the 

Charming Betsy canon to determine whether extraterritorial 

application would be consistent with the law of nations. Ali, 

718 F.3d at 935; see Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1664-65. Ali was 

also charged with conspiracy to commit hostage taking under

the Hostage Taking Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1203. Like the 

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MDLEA, the Hostage Taking Act specifically provides for its 

extraterritorial application, and it also criminalizes conspiracy

in the same statute. Id. § 1203(a). Because the Hostage 

Taking Act made clear its extraterritorial reach, and because 

that understanding applied to the Act’s conspiracy 

prohibition, we declined to apply the Charming Betsy canon. 

Ali, 718 F.3d at 943. 

We follow the same course here with respect to the 

MDLEA. To be sure, the Hostage Taking Act’s prohibition 

against conspiracy appears in the same statutory subsection as 

the underlying substantive offense, 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a), 

whereas the MDLEA codifies its conspiracy prohibition in a 

separate statutory section, 46 U.S.C. § 70506(b). But we 

view that to be a distinction without a difference. 

Our conclusion that the MDLEA’s conspiracy provision 

applies extraterritorially is consistent with Congress’s purpose

in enacting it. As the Senate Report for the MDLEA explains, 

Congress sought to address concerns about difficulties 

encountered in prosecuting persons involved with shipments 

of drugs to the United States on vessels, both with respect to 

the crew on board and others associated with the enterprise. 

Before the MDLEA’s enactment, when the Coast Guard 

seized illegal drug shipments, the government could not

“prosecute the crew or others involved in the smuggling 

operation” in the absence of often elusive evidence that the 

drugs were destined for the United States. S. Rep. No. 96-

855, at 2 (1980), reprinted in U.S.C.C.A.N. 2785, 2786 (July 

16, 1980) (emphasis added). In light of the obstacles to 

successful prosecution in the United States, the Coast Guard’s 

drug interdiction efforts had “little deterrent effect on the 

crews or the trafficking organizations.” Id. (emphasis added).

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Recognizing that “trafficking in controlled substances 

aboard vessels is a serious international problem, is 

universally condemned, and presents a specific threat to the 

security and societal well-being of the United States,” 46 

U.S.C. § 70501, Congress enacted the MDLEA to enhance 

the government’s ability to prosecute members of drug 

trafficking organizations. Giving the MDLEA’s conspiracy 

provision the construction suggested by Ballestas would 

effectively inoculate many members of such organizations—

including organizations targeting the United States—against 

prosecution. Drug kingpins and other conspirators who 

facilitate and assist in carrying out trafficking schemes would 

fall beyond the reach of the statute, compromising the 

overriding intent of Congress in enacting it. Those 

considerations reinforce our conclusion that the MDLEA’s 

conspiracy provision reaches Ballestas’s extraterritorial 

conduct in this case.

B.

Ballestas next argues that, even if the MDLEA’s 

conspiracy provision applies extraterritorially, his particular 

conduct is still beyond the statute’s reach. The MDLEA’s 

substantive provision criminalizes the manufacture, 

distribution, or possession of a controlled substance “on 

board” a covered vessel. 46 U.S.C. § 70503(a). That 

language, Ballestas claims, imposes an express limitation on 

the scope of the MDLEA’s extraterritorial application. The 

qualifying phrase “on board,” according to Ballestas, means 

that the MDLEA should apply extraterritorially only when a 

person’s charged conduct took place on board a covered 

vessel.

At the outset, we note that, under the interpretation 

Ballestas urges us to adopt, the conspiracy and attempt 

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prohibition contained in § 70506(b) would seemingly do little 

practical work. Under his interpretation, § 70506(b) would 

reach individuals conspiring or attempting to violate § 70503 

only if their conduct took place while physically “on board 

vessels” covered by the statute. But it is unclear whether 

someone could conspire or attempt to violate § 70503(a) 

while “on board a vessel” without simultaneously violating 

the substantive prohibition itself. If a person on a covered 

vessel knows that drugs destined for distribution are on the 

vessel and has played a role in the trafficking enterprise (as 

would be the case in a conspiracy or attempt prosecution), 

that person might well also have committed the underlying 

substantive offense by “possess[ing]” (at least constructively), 

with intent to distribute, “a controlled substance on board” the

vessel. 46 U.S.C. § 70503(a).

In any event, we need not definitively decide in this case

whether, or to what extent, the phrase “on board a vessel” 

might limit the extraterritorial application of the MDLEA. 

Regardless, Ballestas’s conduct would still fall within the 

statute’s exterritorial reach. It is a well-established principle 

of conspiracy law that “the overt act of one partner in a crime 

is attributable to all.” Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 

640, 647 (1946). And “[a]s long as a substantive offense was 

done in furtherance of the conspiracy, and was reasonably 

foreseeable as a ‘necessary or natural consequence of the 

unlawful agreement,’ then a conspirator will be held 

vicariously liable for the offense committed by his or her coconspirators.” United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 

1012 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Those settled principles apply to 

Ballestas.

The stipulated facts establish, first, that criminal conduct 

took place “on board” vessels covered by the MDLEA, and

second, that the criminal conduct is attributable to Ballestas as 

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a co-conspirator. Ballestas stipulated to his involvement in a 

drug trafficking organization that regularly transported drugs 

on board vessels traveling over the high seas. App. 179-80. 

In particular, Ballestas stipulated to his awareness that the 

organization transported approximately 1500 kilograms of 

cocaine on board a vessel apprehended by the United States

Coast Guard on or about March 3, 2010. Id. at 181. The 

overt acts of other conspirators on board the March 3rd vessel 

are therefore attributable to Ballestas, satisfying any “on 

board a vessel” requirement that might arguably circumscribe 

the MDLEA’s extraterritorial application.

III.

Ballestas next challenges Congress’s authority to 

criminalize his actions under the Define and Punish Clause, 

U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 10. That clause grants Congress the 

authority “[t]o define and punish Piracies and Felonies 

committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of 

Nations.” The clause encompasses three distinct powers: (i) 

to define and punish piracy; (ii) to define and punish felonies 

committed on the high seas; and (iii) to define and punish 

offenses against the Law of Nations. See United States v. 

Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 153, 158-59 (1820). In defending 

Congress’s constitutional authority to apply the MDLEA in 

the circumstances of this case, the government relies solely on 

Congress’s power under the Felonies Clause, i.e., its power to 

define and punish felonies committed on the high seas. We 

agree that the Felonies Clause grants Congress authority to 

criminalize Ballestas’s conduct.

Ballestas’s argument relies in substantial part on the 

Eleventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. BellaizacHurtado, 700 F.3d 1245 (11th Cir. 2012). In that case, 

Panamanian officials apprehended the defendants on board a 

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stateless vessel in Panamanian waters. Panama consented to

the prosecution of the defendants in the United States, but the 

Eleventh Circuit found that the application of the MDLEA to 

the defendants’ conduct lay beyond Congress’s constitutional 

authority. Critically, however, the government in BellaizacHurtado relied solely on the Law of Nations Clause to support 

the constitutionality of the MDLEA’s application. 

Responding to the government’s argument, the Eleventh 

Circuit held that “drug trafficking is not a violation of 

customary international law and, as a result, falls outside the 

power of Congress under the [Law of Nations] Clause.” Id. at 

1249. Bellaizac-Hurtado did not address whether any 

alternative source of congressional authority—such as the 

Felonies Clause—could serve to criminalize the defendants’ 

conduct. Id. at 1258. In fact, the court observed that “all of 

the [other] appeals in which we have considered the 

constitutionality of [drug trafficking] laws involved conduct 

on the high seas,” and those convictions were upheld “as an 

exercise of [Congress’s] power under the Felonies Clause.” 

Id. at 1257. Because the government in this case defends 

Congress’s authority under the Felonies Clause, not the Law 

of Nations Clause, Bellaizac-Hurtado is of little assistance to 

Ballestas.

In assessing whether the Felonies Clause grants Congress 

the power to criminalize Ballestas’s behavior, we again rely 

on the established principles of conspiracy law set forth 

above. As discussed, “the overt act of one partner in a crime 

is attributable to all,” Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 647, as long as 

the act “was done in furtherance of the conspiracy, and was 

reasonably foreseeable as a ‘necessary or natural consequence 

of the unlawful agreement,’” Washington, 106 F.3d at 1011 

(quoting Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 647-48). Here, the stipulated 

facts establish that Ballestas’s co-conspirators committed 

felonious acts on the high seas, and also that those acts are 

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directly attributable to him. Ballestas acknowledged that one 

of the drug trafficking organization’s vessels was 

apprehended on March 3, 2010, carrying approximately 1500 

kilograms of cocaine. App. 181. He further acknowledged 

that the vessel had “traveled through the high seas.” Id. As 

an admitted co-conspirator of the crew members, the acts of 

the crew—committed on the high seas—are attributable to 

Ballestas. The Felonies Clause therefore provides Congress 

with authority to “punish” Ballestas for his role in that 

conspiracy.

IV.

We next consider Ballestas’s argument that the 

application of the MDLEA in his case violated the Due 

Process Clause because the government failed to demonstrate 

a nexus between his actions abroad and the United States. 

Our circuit has yet to decide “whether the Constitution limits 

the extraterritorial exercise of federal criminal jurisdiction.” 

Ali, 718 F.3d at 943-44. Several other courts of appeals, 

though, have found that the Due Process Clause imposes 

limits on the extraterritorial application of federal criminal 

laws. See, e.g., United States v. Brehm, 691 F.3d 547, 552-54

(4th Cir. 2012); United States v. Ibarguen-Mosquera, 634 

F.3d 1370, 1378-79 (11th Cir. 2011). Those courts generally 

require a showing of “sufficient nexus between the defendant 

and the United States, so that . . . application [of the law] 

would not be arbitrary or fundamentally unfair.” United 

States v. Davis, 905 F.2d 245, 248-49 (9th Cir. 1990) (citation 

omitted). 

Just as in Ali, we need not definitively resolve whether 

the Due Process Clause constrains the extraterritorial 

application of federal criminal laws. Even assuming the 

existence of a due process limitation, the extraterritorial 

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application of the MDLEA in this case would not run afoul of 

it. As we observed in Ali, nexus with the United States 

merely serves as a “proxy for due process” requirements. Ali, 

718 F.3d at 944. “The ‘ultimate question’” under the Due 

Process Clause is not nexus, but is “whether ‘application of 

the statute to the defendant [would] be arbitrary or 

fundamentally unfair.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Juda, 46 

F.3d 961, 967 (9th Cir. 1995)). There is no arbitrariness or 

fundamental unfairness in the circumstances of this case. 

Again, Ballestas’s factual stipulations establish that he

was part of an international drug smuggling organization that 

used stateless vessels to transport drugs across the high seas, 

bound ultimately for the United States. The conduct to which 

Ballestas pleaded guilty involved obtaining and selling reports 

and maps “indicat[ing] where U.S., Colombian and other 

countries’ . . . maritime assets were operating in the 

Caribbean Sea on a particular day.” App. 180 (emphasis 

added). He stipulated to his knowledge that his coconspirators used the maps to “plan the best route to be taken 

by the cocaine-laden vessels so as to avoid detection by 

maritime and law enforcement authorities,” including, 

specifically, United States authorities. Id. Those admissions

establish that application of a United States drug trafficking 

law (the MDLEA) to Ballestas was neither arbitrary nor 

fundamentally unfair.

V.

Ballestas claims that the district court erred in accepting 

the government’s allegations as true when the court denied his 

motion to dismiss the indictment. In denying the motion, the 

district court relied on the “the Government[’s] proffer[] that 

the vessel seized on March 3rd, 2010, was a vessel without 

nationality” (and thus a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of 

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the United States). App. 76. In Ballestas’s view, the court 

could not deny his motion without requiring the introduction 

of evidence on whether the vessel in fact was subject to the 

jurisdiction of the United States and presenting that issue to 

the jury for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Ballestas’s argument fundamentally misperceives the 

nature of a motion to dismiss an indictment. Because a 

court’s “use[] [of] its supervisory power to dismiss an 

indictment . . . directly encroaches upon the fundamental role 

of the grand jury,” dismissal is granted only in unusual 

circumstances. Whitehouse v. U.S. Dist. Court, 53 F.3d 1349, 

1360 (1st Cir. 1995) (citing Bank of Nova Scotia v. United 

States, 487 U.S. 250, 263 (1988)). An “indictment’s main 

purpose is ‘to inform the defendant of the nature of the 

accusation against him.’” United States v. Hitt, 249 F.3d 

1010, 1016 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (quoting Russell v. United States, 

396 U.S. 749, 767 (1962)). It therefore need only contain “a 

plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential 

facts constituting the offense charged.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(c). 

When considering a motion to dismiss an indictment, a court 

assumes the truth of those factual allegations. See Boyce 

Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 343 n.16 (1952). 

Consequently, the district court did not err when it assumed 

the truth of the government’s proffered facts in denying 

Ballestas’s motion, including with regard to whether the 

pertinent vessel was subject to the jurisdiction of the United 

States.

VI.

Ballestas next argues that the government violated its 

constitutional obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence 

under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). According to 

Ballestas, the government waited too long to notify him of a 

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related trial that took place in the Middle District of Florida in 

2010. That trial involved the prosecution of the crew 

members apprehended during the seizure of the vessel on 

March 3, 2010. Instead of disclosing the existence of the 

Florida prosecution at Ballestas’s first appearance before the 

district court in February 2012, it appears that the government 

waited until December to notify Ballestas of the Florida 

proceeding. That delay, Ballestas contends, prevented him 

from gaining access to several documents that he thinks 

would have strengthened his case. The government argues 

that we should not reach the merits of Ballestas’s Brady claim 

because he waived any Brady argument when he entered a 

guilty plea. See United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 

(2002). We need not resolve the government’s waiver 

argument, however, because we conclude that no 

constitutional violation took place in any event.

To succeed on the merits of his Brady claim, Ballestas 

must show that (i) the government suppressed evidence; and 

(ii) the evidence was favorable and material. See Strickler v. 

Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281-82 (1999). Ballestas’s claim fails 

at the first step. When a defendant challenges the 

government’s alleged delay in disclosure of exculpatory 

evidence, “the defendant must show a reasonable probability 

that an earlier disclosure would have changed the trial’s 

result.” United States v. Dean, 55 F.3d 640, 663 (D.C. Cir. 

1995). If a “defendant receives exculpatory evidence ‘in time 

to make effective use of it,’ a new trial is, in most cases, not 

warranted.” Id. (quoting United States v. Paxson, 861 F.2d 

730, 737 (D.C. Cir. 1988)). 

Here, the government alerted Ballestas to the existence of 

the Florida prosecution by December 2012. Additionally, the 

government around that time disclosed to Ballestas law 

enforcement materials containing information about the 

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March 2010 vessel seizures. Those materials included the 

precise Coast Guard declaration Ballestas now claims is

Brady material. Although the disclosures came after Ballestas 

had submitted briefing on his motion to dismiss, they 

occurred three months before the district court ruled on the 

motion and nine months before Ballestas entered his guilty 

plea. Ballestas therefore had ample time to “make effective 

use” of any information from the Florida trial in support of his 

motion to dismiss and in deciding whether to enter a plea of 

guilty. Consequently, Ballestas has not shown a “reasonable 

probability” that earlier disclosure of the Coast Guard 

declaration would have made any difference. Id. 

Ballestas separately suggests that the government should 

have pointed Ballestas to a habeas petition filed by one of the 

Florida defendants—Victor M. Ballestero Linares. That 

petition included an affidavit by Linares, which Ballestas 

maintains would have been helpful to his case. But Linares’s 

affidavit was listed under the criminal docket number 

disclosed to Ballestas by the government in December 2012. 

Because Ballestas had access to that affidavit “in time to 

make effective use of it,” he cannot show that the government 

suppressed the document. Paxson, 861 F.2d at 737. 

VII.

Finally, Ballestas challenges the sentence imposed by the 

district court. He claims that the MDLEA does not give the 

district court authority to consider conduct beyond the activity 

that took place on board the vessel seized on March 3, 2010—

the only vessel specifically identified in the factual 

stipulations as having traveled through the high seas..

Appellant Br. 42-43. As an initial matter, the nature of 

Ballestas’s argument is unclear. His guilty plea laid out the 

guideline calculations supported by the stipulated facts and 

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concluded that “the Defendant’s Total Offense Level would 

be 27/Criminal History Category I or a Guidelines range of 70 

to 87 months.” App. 188. That guidelines range was based 

solely on the drug amount recovered from the vessel seized on 

March 3rd. See id. at 186-88. While the district court 

considered other conduct in ultimately selecting a sentence 

within (or, actually, below) that range, courts enjoy 

substantial discretion to consider a wide range of factors when 

imposing a sentence following calculation of the guidelines 

range. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

In any event, Ballestas’s guilty plea waived his right to 

appeal his sentence except insofar as “the sentence exceeds 

the maximum permitted by statute or results from an upward 

departure from the guideline range established by the Court at 

sentencing.” App. 192. Ballestas cannot succeed in 

challenging his sentence on either of the two grounds he 

preserved. His guilty plea laid out the guidelines calculations 

supported by the stipulated facts, arriving at a guidelines 

range of seventy to eighty-seven months of imprisonment 

based on the amount of drugs recovered from the March 3rd

vessel. Id. at 188. The district court ultimately sentenced him 

to a below-guidelines sentence of sixty-four months. 

Ballestas therefore has no basis for appealing his sentence on 

the ground that it “results from an upward departure from the 

guideline range established by the [district court].” Id. at 192. 

Additionally, because the MDLEA allows for a maximum 

sentence of twenty years of imprisonment for the charged 

conduct, see 46 U.S.C. § 70506(a); 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(3), 

Ballestas likewise has no basis for challenging his sixty-four 

month sentence on the ground that it “exceeds the maximum 

permitted by statute.” App. 192.

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* * * * *

For the foregoing reasons, we reject Ballestas’s 

challenges and affirm the judgment of the district court.

So ordered.

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