Court Opinion

ID: 9476363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:54:06.338166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:16.685149
License: Public Domain

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The prosecution did not present sufficient evidence to convict Coates. Under the deliberate ignorance instruction, the prosecution had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Coates “believed [s]he was importing a controlled substance and through willful blindness failed to confirm that belief.” United States v. Restrepo-Granda, 575 F.2d 524, 529 (5th Cir.1978). The jury could not reasonably have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Coates believed the boat carried a controlled substance. The case against Coates amounts to this: She was present when some wealthy Cubans hired her husband to sail a boat from Panama to Florida; the Cubans paid for lodging in Miami for a month; the Cubans told stories indicating that persons who cooperate with law enforcement agencies are dealt with severely; Coates was aware that two crew members on the boat were burning rubber in the engine room of the vessel; Coates expressed fear of the Cubans; and she agreed with Peddle when he said he did not want to know what was aboard the vessel.
Peddle admitted that he only suspected that contraband might be aboard the vessel. This suspicion was based largely on the fact that the vessel was difficult to steer (due to the undiscovered auxiliary tanks) and the fact that he witnessed the transfer of a box, which he believed contained money, from the Cubans to several Colombians in Panama. Coates, on the other hand, did not witness the transfer of the box, and due to her lack of nautical knowledge, was unaware of the difficulty in steering the vessel. Moreover, Coates accompanied Peddle on his stem to stern inspection of the vessel prior to the voyage. Nothing in that investigation raised their suspicions.
Perhaps the best evidence that Coates had no belief that the vessel contained a controlled substance, is the fact that the Drug Enforcement Agency officers *1526searched the vessel for 10 to 12 hours without finding the controlled substances. This fact creates a strong inference that no visible evidence indicated to Coates the nature of the vessel’s cargo. The jury’s verdict against Coates on all four counts is not supported by substantial evidence.