United States v. Suarez

18-994-cr
United States v. Suarez
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE
EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON
ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
New York, on the 4th day of December, two thousand nineteen.
PRESENT:
ROBERT A. KATZMANN,
Chief Judge,
GUIDO CALABRESI,
RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR.,
Circuit Judges.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v. No. 18-994-cr
GERSON PALAGIO SUAREZ,1
Defendant-Appellant.
For Defendant-Appellant: ALAN NELSON, Law Office of Alan Nelson,
Esq., Lake Success, NY.
For Appellee: JASON M. SWERGOLD, Assistant United
States’ Attorney (Amanda L. Houle, Karl
Metzner, Assistant United States’ Attorneys,
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The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as above.
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on the brief), for Geoffrey S. Berman, United
States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York, New York, NY.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York (Sullivan, J.).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND
DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Gerson Palagio Suarez appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the
Southern District of New York (Sullivan, J.), convicting him, after a plea of guilty, of two counts
of violating the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (“MDLEA”), 46 U.S.C. § 70501 et seq.: (i)
manufacturing and distributing, and possessing with intent to manufacture and distribute, five
kilograms and more of mixtures and substances containing a detectable amount of cocaine, while
aboard a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and (ii) conspiracy to do the same.
We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case,
and the issues on appeal.
All issues here on appeal were resolved by precedential opinion in United States v. Van
Der End, No. 17-2926, 2019 WL 5991546 (2d Cir. Nov. 14, 2019), in which we affirmed the
district court’s judgment as to Suarez’s codefendant, Stefan Van Der End, who raised identical
arguments on appeal. In Van Der End, we held that by pleading guilty, the defendant waived his
right to raise a Confrontation Clause challenge to the government’s evidence that the vessel upon
which he and Suarez traveled was stateless and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States. Id. at *3. Relatedly, we held that the defendant, by pleading guilty, had waived his claim
that the district court should have submitted the question of whether the vessel was subject to the
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United States’ jurisdiction to the jury. Id. at *3-4. Because Suarez pled guilty, he has likewise
waived these rights.
In Van Der End, we held that the government had presented sufficient evidence of the
vessel’s statelessness, id. at *3, and that the Due Process Clause does not require that MDLEA
crimes committed on board stateless vessels have a nexus to the United States, id. at *4-5. These
conclusions apply equally to Suarez’s arguments concerning the sufficiency of the evidence of the
vessel’s statelessness and the Due Process Clause’s constraints on the MDLEA.
Suarez has raised no arguments on appeal that were not advanced by his codefendant and
resolved by this Court in Van Der End. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
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