The case arose from a January 18, 2022, interdiction in international waters roughly 158 nautical miles southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Marine Patrol Aircraft spotted Angelo Martinez, Eric Manuel Suero Terrero, and Justo Matos Pena aboard a go-fast vessel and diverted Coast Guard ships to investigate. A Coast Guard helicopter crew observed the three men jettisoning packages overboard — six of which were later recovered — before boarding teams seized the vessel and found approximately 375 kilograms of cocaine. When Martinez, the vessel's master, claimed Colombian registry, the Colombian government responded that it could neither confirm nor deny the boat's registration, rendering it a stateless vessel under the MDLEA.
All three men were charged by indictment with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine aboard a vessel subject to U.S. jurisdiction, in violation of 46 U.S.C. §§ 70503(a)(1) and 70506(b), as well as a substantive possession count. They moved jointly to dismiss the indictment on constitutional grounds, arguing both that the MDLEA exceeds Congress's power under the Felonies Clause and that it was unconstitutionally applied to conduct occurring in another nation's exclusive economic zone. The district court denied the motion, citing the Eleventh Circuit's long line of cases upholding the MDLEA under the protective principle of international law, which permits a nation to assert jurisdiction over a person whose conduct outside the nation's territory threatens the nation's security or could potentially interfere with the operation of its governmental functions. All three defendants then pleaded guilty.
On appeal, the panel — consisting of Circuit Judges Robin Rosenbaum, Barbara Lagoa, and Sidney Marcus — had little difficulty disposing of the constitutional claims, largely because the defendants themselves acknowledged the arguments were foreclosed. As the court noted, the defendants raised the issues to preserve further review. Pointing to its 2024 decision in United States v. Alfonso, the court reaffirmed that a nation's EEZ is part of the high seas for purposes of the Felonies Clause in Article I of the Constitution, so enforcement of the MDLEA in EEZs is proper. The court likewise rejected the argument that Colombia's failure to confirm the vessel's registry did not render it stateless, reiterating that stateless vessels are international pariahs that have no internationally recognized right to navigate freely on the high seas.
The defendants also argued for the first time on appeal that prosecuting them for conduct with no nexus to the United States violated due process. The court declined to consider the argument as waived, but went on to reject it on the merits anyway. The court stated that it has repeatedly rejected the argument that Congress exceeded its authority under the Felonies Clause because an MDLEA defendant's conduct lacked any nexus to the United States. The court added that Congress itself has found 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.
Suero Terrero separately challenged the district court's denial of a minor-participant sentencing reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b). He told the sentencing court he had been hired only as a deckhand and did not play a major role in the conspiracy. The district court expressed a lot of sympathy for him but concluded he had not really shown the court that he's entitled to a minor role because in that conspiracy he's not a minor participant. Despite denying the reduction, the court sentenced him to 96 months — 12 months below the low end of the guideline range and the lowest of the three defendants' sentences. The Eleventh Circuit found no clear error, noting that Suero Terrero's conduct involved transporting nearly half a ton of cocaine along an international trafficking route and that being the least culpable of the three did not automatically entitle him to a minor-role adjustment.
The most consequential aspect of the ruling for future defendants may be the court's treatment of Amendment 833 to the Sentencing Guidelines, which took effect November 1, 2025, while the appeal was pending. The amendment inserted new language into U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(e)(2)(B) making minor-role reductions generally warranted for defendants whose primary function is a low-level trafficking role — such as a courier, lookout, or small-scale distributor — and crucially, making the reduction available even when no other participants are involved and even when the defendant was not substantially less culpable than the average participant. Applying its four-factor Jerchower framework, the panel held Amendment 833 is substantive rather than clarifying: it directly alters the guideline text rather than just commentary; its own commentary describes it as expanding the circumstances warranting a reduction; the Sentencing Commission did not list it as retroactive under § 1B1.10(c); and, most significantly, to the extent that the amendment makes the involvement of other participants irrelevant to whether a defendant can receive a role decrease, it abrogates our Circuit precedent. Because the amendment is substantive, the court declined to apply it retroactively — though it added that even if it did apply, it would not have changed Suero Terrero's sentence.
The ruling reinforces a well-established wall of Eleventh Circuit precedent upholding the MDLEA against constitutional attack, a body of case law that now includes Alfonso (2024), Canario-Vilomar (2025), and this decision. Defense counsel seeking to challenge MDLEA prosecutions on Felonies Clause or nexus grounds in the circuit continue to face foreclosed arguments — at least until the Supreme Court takes up the issue, a petition it declined as recently as last year. For sentencing practitioners, the court's substantive-versus-clarifying analysis of Amendment 833 signals that defendants sentenced before November 1, 2025 will not be able to invoke the new minor-role expansion on direct appeal or collateral review in the Eleventh Circuit.
Martinez was sentenced to 108 months of imprisonment and two years of supervised release; Matos Pena received 144 months on each count, to run concurrently, and five years of supervised release; Suero Terrero received 96 months and two years of supervised release.