Murder at sea

“The FBI is com­mit­ted to address­ing piracy and seri­ous crim­i­nal acts of vio­lence and is ded­i­cated to work­ing with its part­ners at every level to inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute crimes on the high seas.”

—Sal­vador Hernandez, FBI Dep. Asst. Dir.

“Due to the inter­na­tional and juris­dic­tional aspects involved with this inci­dent, we are still work­ing on obtain­ing facts and spe­cific details.”

—Dave Couvertier, FBI Spe­cial Agent

When the Car­ni­val Dream launched on Sept. 21, 2009, she instantly became the largest cruise ship in the entire Car­ni­val fleet. Tech­ni­cally reg­is­tered as a Pana­man­ian ship, she is reported to have more singers, dancers, come­di­ans and other enter­tain­ers than any other Car­ni­val cruise ship. When fully loaded, she can carry more than 4,600 pas­sen­gers and nearly 1,500 crew members.

But what hap­pens if the num­ber of pas­sen­gers both increases and decreases while the ship is at sea? What hap­pens if the decrease is the result of a homi­cide? And what hap­pens if the ship is in inter­na­tional waters when that homi­cide occurs?

Each of those events occurred on a voy­age of the Car­ni­val Dream in Octo­ber 2011. Hav­ing departed from the United States, the Dream, fly­ing under the Pana­man­ian flag, was in inter­na­tional waters on its way to the Dutch side of the island of St. Maarten when its pas­sen­ger man­i­fest increased and decreased by one within a mat­ter of hours. That’s because an Amer­i­can pas­sen­ger, a 20-year-old from Indi­ana, gave birth mid-cruise.

Though she told law Dutch law enforce­ment offi­cers that she was unaware that she was nine months preg­nant when she boarded the cruise ship with a friend sev­eral days prior, her actions ran counter to her words. She gave birth to the child in her cabin and then either killed the infant or left it to die while she and the friend went back out onto the deck to enjoy their cruise. She did not seek med­ical help for the child and did not report the birth. The body of the infant was dis­cov­ered by a crew member.

Because the next port was St. Maarten, Dutch offi­cers inves­ti­gated the crime. Where, though, was the mother to be pros­e­cuted? She was an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen, and thus the child was as well. The boat was Pana­man­ian. The port was Dutch. The ship had sailed from an Amer­i­can port. The scene was international.

Last week, Case Study looked at issues of extra­di­tion when a crime is com­mit­ted in one state and the defen­dant is arrested in another. But inter­na­tional and mar­itime crimes are sig­nif­i­cantly dif­fer­ent. The pros­e­cu­tion of such crimes is han­dled under a con­cept known as Spe­cial Mar­itime and Ter­ri­to­r­ial Juris­dic­tion. In the U.S. this is gov­erned by Title 18, Sec­tion 7 of the United States Code.

The code pro­vides that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment may pros­e­cute crimes com­mit­ted in inter­na­tional waters if the ship is owned by an Amer­i­can com­pany (regard­less of what flag it flies under) and if the vic­tim is a U.S. cit­i­zen and the ship is going to or com­ing from a U.S. port. The United States also has juris­dic­tion if the ship is off the coast but in U.S. waters.

In the Car­ni­val Dream case, the ship had departed from an Amer­i­can port. The vic­tim, by nature of the mother’s nation­al­ity, was a U.S. cit­i­zen. The crime occurred in inter­na­tional waters. Car­ni­val Cruise Lines is head­quar­tered in Doral, Fla., and is an Amer­i­can com­pany, mak­ing the Pana­man­ian flag a moot point. Juris­dic­tion for pros­e­cu­tion of the crime there­fore falls to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment of the United States. If the ship had been in Dutch waters, then the author­i­ties in St. Maarten would have pros­e­cuted the offense.

Indeed, Dutch author­i­ties con­ducted the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion and per­formed the autopsy on the infant before turn­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion over to agents from the F.B.I. who had flown to St. Maarten. Those agents con­ducted inter­views and fur­ther inves­ti­gated the ship after it returned to the U.S.

Spe­cial Mar­itime Juris­dic­tion applies to air­craft fly­ing over the high seas in the same man­ner that it applies to boats float­ing on them. Of course air­craft can move from one juris­dic­tion to another with much greater speed than a cruise ship, pos­ing addi­tional chal­lenges for the deter­mi­na­tion of juris­dic­tion. The last update from the FBI on the Car­ni­val Dream case came in early 2012, report­ing that the case had been moved to an FBI office in Indi­ana and the inves­ti­ga­tion was ongoing.

David Hej­manowski is a mag­is­trate and court admin­is­tra­tor of the Delaware County Juve­nile Court and a for­mer assis­tant pros­e­cut­ing attorney.

Posted by Bret Dennis on Aug 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.