Court Opinion

ID: 9489114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:06:06.453241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:19.809127
License: Public Domain

BOUDIN, Circuit Judge,
with whom SELYA and LYNCH, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
Dr. Johnson once remarked that a man may have a reason why 2 plus 2 equals 5 but it will still equal but 4. The majority has an endless supply of reasons why the statute *1145does not mean what it says. But the majority’s opinion defies the plain language of the statute; it contradicts uniform rulings in three other circuits; and it undermines the purpose and administration of the drug laws. In the majority’s effort, scarcely a major canon of construction escapes damage.
The evidence showed that the defendants collected 16 kilograms of cocaine hidden on Mona Island, an island under the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico but physically separated from mainland Puerto Rico by about 39 miles of water. Assuming a 12-mile limit for U.S. territorial waters, at least 15 miles of international waters separate Mona Island from mainland Puerto Rico. Any ship traveling between Mona Island and mainland Puerto Rico is unquestionably outside the United States for a good portion of the trip.
In this case, the origin of the cocaine is unknown; but the ship’s captain reported that it was part of a larger cache hidden on Mona Island. In all likelihood, Mona Island is a transshipment point. Being subject to less surveillance than mainland Puerto Rico, drugs can be brought to Mona Island in bulk from foreign origins and then smuggled in smaller quantities to the Puerto Rico mainland and then to the continental United States. In all events, the defendants were arrested after their small boat crossed from international waters into U.S. waters surrounding Puerto Rico.
The defendants were convicted of various offenses including violation of 21 U.S.C. § 952(a) which prohibits the importation of specified drugs into the United States. Neither at trial nor on appeal did the defendants argue that their conduct fell outside section 952; but at oral argument, the parties were directed by the original panel to brief the statutory issue. Subsequently, the panel by a 2-to-l vote held that section 952 did not reach the defendants’ conduct.
The panel majority’s decision conflicted with a host of decisions in the Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits. Not surprisingly, the full court voted to rehear the case en banc. What is surprising is that, by a 4r-to-3 vote, the en banc court has now concluded that section 952 does not apply to the defendants’ conduct in bringing 16 kilograms of cocaine from international waters to mainland Puerto Rico. This result is wrong, and it does not take a treatise to show why.
1. “The starting point in statutory interpretation is ‘the language [of the statute] itself.’” United States v. James, 478 U.S. 597, 604, 106 S.Ct. 3116, 3120-21, 92 L.Ed.2d 483 (1986). Section 952(a) says that it is unlawful “to import [specified drugs] into the United States from any place outside there-of_” “Import” is given a special definition for the illegal drugs subehapter: it is defined to mean “any bringing in or introduction of such article into any area....” 21 U.S.C. § 951(b). The prohibited area — the United States — is defined to mean “all places and waters, continental or insular, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” 21 U.S.C. § 802(28).
In this case, the defendants brought prohibited drugs from international waters between Mona Island and mainland Puerto Rico to within a mile or so of the mainland coastline, a point that is unquestionably within the United States. The drugs were, therefore, brought or introduced “into the United States” from “any place outside thereof,” namely, international waters — unless “any place” has to be a land area or unless “import” has a specialized meaning excluding drugs first acquired within the United States.
The phrase “any place outside thereof’ assuredly includes international waters. See, United States v. Goggin, 853 F.2d 843, 845 (11th Cir.1988). If drugs were manufactured on a ship at sea or found floating on a raft, and were then brought into shore by motorboat, that would be an importation from a place outside the United States. The juxtaposition of “places” and “waters” in section 802(28) was almost surely a precautionary redundancy. Adding “waters” to “places” avoids the chance that anyone might mistakenly read “places” to mean only dry land.
The majority does not deny that international waters may be a “place” under the statute: it assumes that drugs acquired from a mother ship at sea might be imported under the statute; but it says that in this case defendants first acquired the drugs *1146within the United States, i.e., on Mona Island. But the statute says nothing about where the defendants first acquired their drugs. Indeed, drugs “acquired” by a defendant in the United States but carried abroad can later be illegally re-imported. E.g., United States v. Friedman, 501 F.2d 1352, 1353-54 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1054, 95 S.Ct. 635, 42 L.Ed.2d 651 (1974) (transit through Mexico).
As for the term “import,” absent a statutory definition the common connotation of foreign-country origin might prevail. But courts are bound, Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392 n. 10, 99 S.Ct. 675, 684 n. 10, 58 L.Ed.2d 596 (1979), by Congress’ special definition of “import,” incorporated into section 952 by section 951(b), defining “import” in relation to destination, not origin. E.g., United States v. Peabody, 626 F.2d 1300, 1301 (5th Cir.1980). This definition applies “whether or not such a bringing in or introduction constitutes an importation within the meaning of the tariff laws of the United States.” 21 U.S.C. § 951(a)(1).
In a further language argument, the majority suggests that its reading of section 952 is supported by a comparison of subsection (a)’s two clauses. The main clause, barring imports “into the United States,” is the core provision whose substance can be traced back to 1909. The other clause — added in a 1970 recodification of drug laws — covers imports into U.S. customs territory (the states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) from any U.S. possession. The majority contends that, on the government’s reading of the main clause, the customs territory clause is superfluous and has no independent effect.
The origin and purpose of the customs territory clause are remarkably obscure (it appeared only in certain House bills and was nowhere explained). But it is fair to think that smuggling from some U.S. possessions to the states had become a problem and Congress therefore included language that would unquestionably cover such shipments. At the time Congress had no knowledge of precisely how the main clause would be read, and it certainly had no interest in narrowing the scope of the main clause by implication.
In any event, the customs clause is neither superfluous nor without substantial independent application. It is far from clear whether carrying drugs aboard a scheduled nonstop airline flight between two U.S. points could ever be treated as importation under the main clause; a defendant would certainly argue that for all practical purposes, drugs on such a flight are never outside the country. Yet such a flight from a U.S. possession to U.S. customs territory, say from Guam to Los Angeles or from the U.S. Virgin Islands to San Juan, could readily be prosecuted under the customs territory clause. That geographic content to the customs clause eliminates the majority’s superfluousness argument.
It is not the government’s position, but that of the majority, that ruptures the superfluousness canon. Under the special definition of import in section 951(b), Congress envisaged a kind of transparent curtain around the boundaries of the United States, and bringing drugs through that curtain is the crime. The majority has effectively repealed and rendered meaningless Congress’ specialized definition, replacing it with a vernacular definition of import that requires no statutory definition at all.
2. The precedents from other circuits, reflecting a previously uniform application of the statute, all treat the introduction of drugs from international waters or international airspace as a violation of the import statute.15 This has been the consistent position of the Fifth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit, the three circuits whose area of jurisdiction includes the entire Pacific and Gulf coasts of the United States. Until this case, no circuit has taken the contrary view.
*1147For example, in affirming a conviction based on a shipment intercepted in Florida waters, the Fifth Circuit in Peabody stated:
Had their cargo or contraband originated in, say, Texas, that would not alter the fact that it was meant to reenter the United States from international waters. That is enough.
626 F.2d at 1301. In Goggin, the Eleventh Circuit said that it was importation to bring cocaine “into the country from international waters or from airspace in excess of twelve geographical miles outward from the coast.” Goggin, 853 F.2d at 845. The Ninth Circuit in Pérez likewise deemed “transit through international waters” a basis for importation. 776 F.2d at 800-01.
Moreover, as the quote from Peabody shows, the circuits treat the U.S. origin of the drugs as no defense if the drugs are removed from the United States and then reintroduced. Similarly, in United States v. Doyal, 437 F.2d 271, 275 (5th Cir.1971), involving a predecessor to section 952, the court flatly rejected the defense that the re-imported drugs had originated in the United States, saying: “[e]ach time the drug was imported into the United States a violation would occur.” See also Friedman, 501 F.2d at 1354.
Cases like Peabody and Doyal also underline a major fallacy in the majority’s opinion, namely, the majority’s assumption that a drug shipment can only come from one “place.” It is evident that the defendants in this ease possessed the drugs both on Mona Island and, thereafter, in international waters. But it was from international waters that the defendants finally “[brought] in or introduc[ed] ... such articles into” the United States, 21 U.S.C. § 951(b); and reimpor-tation is not a defense to drug smuggling.
The present decision actually contradicts precedent in a fourth circuit as well: In United States v. Nueva, 979 F.2d 880 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 997, 113 S.Ct. 1615, 123 L.Ed.2d 175 (1993), the defendants, located in a boat in international waters, retrieved packages of coeaine dropped from a plane. This circuit in Nueva, quoting Goggin, ruled that “importation” into the United States under section 952 “requires proof that the ‘defendant [conspired to bring] cocaine into the country from international waters or airspace in excess of twelve geographical miles outward from the coastline:’ ” Id. at 884.
The majority’s answer to all of these cases is that the decisions of other circuits are ill-reasoned, or that their plain language — adverse to the dissent — was unnecessary, or both. But none of the many different judges who participated in these decisions apparently thought the statute should be read as the majority reads it. As of today, a major criminal statute means one thing in the 15 states of the Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits; and it means something eccentrically different in four Northeastern states and Puerto Rico.
This parade of appellate cases from other circuits is surely only a sample of similar prosecutions and convictions; there must certainly be others where, as here, the defendants were convicted for importing drugs from international waters and then did not choose to dispute the import charge on appeal. By themselves, the authorities from three circuits refute the majority’s claim that the government’s reading of the statute is newly minted or at odds with enforcement practices. The only novelty in this case is the majority’s decision.
3. A final test of statutory meaning is the underlying purpose of the statute. Borella v. Borden Co., 145 F.2d 63, 64 (2d Cir.1944) (L. Hand), aff'd, 325 U.S. 679, 65 S.Ct. 1223, 89 L.Ed. 1865 (1945). Congress’ interest in protecting U.S. borders echoes through the history of the statute. In proposing the legislation, the President’s special message said that the import provisions were intended “to intercept [drugs] at their point of illegal entry into the United States,” and there are numerous references — by the President, from law enforcement witnesses, and by legislators — to guarding the nation’s “borders” against drugs.16
*1148The legislators had no reason to care one whit whether the drugs were brought from international waters or from a foreign land, so long as they crossed the U.S. boundary. Indeed, Congress’ indifference to origins is reflected three times over: in its expressed purpose to protect our “borders,” in the expansive phrase “from any place outside thereof,” and in a companion statute making it unlawful for anyone to possess prohibited drugs on board a vessel “arriving” in the United States unless manifested as cargo or official supplies. 21 U.S.C. § 955.
It was irrelevant to Congress’ purpose whether the drugs were originally produced within the United States, as might matter under a tariff statute designed to protect U.S. markets from foreign competition and to favor local producers. In enacting section 952, Congress was using the border crossing as a convenient jurisdictional hook on which to catch traffickers. See Peabody, 626 F.2d at 1301. Thus, the statute is violated where drugs are produced within the United States, carried to a foreign country and then reintroduced into this country. Accord Friedman, 501 F.2d at 1353-54; cf. Hearings, supra, at 205 (reintroduction of drugs after export).
In smuggling operations a boat arriving from international waters, or a small plane from international airspace, often comes from an unknown point of origin. If one added to the government’s burden of proof the obligation to show the point of origin, time would be spent by courts and parties on an issue wholly irrelevant to Congress’ concern to exclude drugs. In many cases, the government would win; in some it might lose. Such proof serves no purpose except to waste time, squander law enforcement and judicial resources, and cause occasional erratic acquittals of drug importers.
To suggest that Congress could not have intended the statute to apply, the majority summons up visions of federal agents arresting day sailors or airline passengers transiting from one U.S. point to another with a few joints of marijuana on board. But such dubious results are not avoided by distorting the statute: a day hiker with a few joints who strayed over the border to Canada and then back again or a tourist with a few joints returning from London by plane would be importing by any definition.
More to the point, there is no record of prosecutorial abuse of section 952. Indeed, the majority twists this fact into a claim that the government’s interpretation must therefore be a radical change in position, but the majority has confused two different points. The government has not abused the statute by applying it to trivial amounts for personal use; but it has applied it to major drug shipments arriving from international waters or international air space. As the precedents show, it has been upheld in every reported case.
The courts are capable of warding off unjust results, if and when they arise. E.g., United States v. Aversa, 984 F.2d 493 (1st Cir.1993), vacated, — U.S. —, 114 S.Ct. 873, 127 L.Ed.2d 70 (1994). But such surgery is properly done with a scalpel rather than an axe, and there is no cause for any surgery here. In this{ case, the defendants were not day sailors or tourists; they were importing 16 kilograms of cocaine into Puer-to Rico after a substantial trip through international waters. They fall squarely within the purpose, as well as the plain language, of section 952. The rule of lenity has nothing to do with such a case.
To conclude: The majority opinion is not short of “reasons” for its result; after many pages of argument, one emerges half-dazed from the labyrinth of explanations. But nothing the majority says can overcome a single phrase in the statute — section 951(b)’s definition of “import” as “any bringing in or introduction” of drugs into the United States. That is what the defendants did in this case, and that is why their convictions under section 952 should be affirmed.

. See United States v. Peabody, 626 F.2d 1300 (5th Cir.1980); United States v. Phillips, 664 F.2d 971, 1033 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1136, 102 S.Ct. 2965, 73 L.Ed.2d 1354 (1982); United States v. Pérez, 776 F.2d 797 (9th Cir.1985); People of Territory of Guam v. Sugiyama, 846 F.2d 570, 572 (9th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1010, 109 S.Ct. 1652, 104 L.Ed.2d 166 (1989); United States v. Lueck, 678 F.2d 895 (11th Cir.1982); United States v. Goggin, 853 F.2d 843 (11th Cir.1988).

. 1969 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States 513 (Presidential message); Hearings on Legislation to Regulate Controlled Dangerous Substances and Amend Narcotics and Drug *1148Laws Before the House Ways and Means Committee, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 205 (1970) (statement of the Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs); id. at 322 (statement of Representative Pepper).