Criminal Jurisdiction

• Author: International Law Group

Brevard County, Florida authorities charged Matthew Stepansky, a U.S. citizen, with burglary and attempted sexual battery of a thirteen-year-old American citizen aboard the cruise ship M/V ATLANTIC about 100 nautical miles off Florida's Atlantic coast. The ship had left and come back to Port Canaveral in Brevard County. Neither defendant nor victim resides in Florida. Premier Cruise Lines, Ltd. of the British West Indies owns the M/V ATLANTIC but has it registered in Liberia. Neither the federal government, nor any American state nor Liberia has taken any steps to prosecute this offense.

Section 910.006(3), Florida Statutes (1995), provides in relevant part that "The special maritime criminal jurisdiction of the state extends to acts or omissions on board a ship outside of the state under any of the following circumstances: ... (d) The act or omission occurs during a voyage on which over half of the revenue passengers on board the ship originally embarked and plan to finally disembark in this state, without regard to intermediate stopovers." The cruise in question qualified under the statutory terms of Section (d).

Defendant moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution precluded Florida prosecution for this offense on the high seas. The trial court denied his motion but the intermediate appellate court issued a writ of prohibition on the grounds that Section (d) of the above statute is unconstitutional under Article I, Section 10. On the state's appeal, the Florida Supreme Court reverses in a 5 to 2 vote. Noting the provisions of the Tenth Amendment and the primary authority of the states to prosecute criminal offenses unless preempted by federal law, the Court analyzes several U.S. Constitutional provisions that might affect the validity of Section (d). Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 10, Congress may define piracies and other felonies on the high seas. The Court, however, rules that principles of concurrent jurisdiction do not preclude prosecution for high seas offenses by both the federal and state authorities.

Defendant's next contention is that Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, bars a state from entering into a treaty with the flag state, Liberia. As a result, the flag-state rule of ordinarily exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas set forth in Article VI of the Geneva Convention on the High Seas of 1958 [13 U.S.T. 2313, 2315, 450 U.N.T.S. 82,86] does not allow for state prosecution for...