Reported / Citable
Background
Hoang Xuan “Wayne” Le, Sheila Marie Ritze, and Tri Minh “James” Dao left Dana Point Harbor in October 2019 on what Dao believed was a lobster-fishing trip. Dao did not return; police recovered his body from the ocean, drowned with two gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma. Cellphone data placed the boat no farther than three nautical miles from shore. A federal jury convicted Le of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and a firearm offense under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1111, 1117, and 924(c), and the district court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Le challenged federal jurisdiction because the government conceded it could not prove the murder occurred more than three nautical miles from California’s shore. The parties stipulated that the charges should be dismissed if those waters fell outside the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The district court nevertheless held that section 901(a) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 brought the entire twelve-mile territorial sea within that jurisdiction for Title 18 crimes.
After more than three full days of deliberations, juror BJR asked to be excused, saying deliberations had put her mental health in a dangerous position. Questioned by the court, she confirmed her worsening mental health was based on pressure from other jurors to reach a specific verdict. The foreperson later reported she remained unable to continue and had expressed thoughts of self-harm. The parties jointly agreed to excuse her, the court seated an alternate, and the reconstituted jury convicted Le on all three counts in less than a full day.
The Court’s Holding
Writing for the panel, Judge Friedland first rejected the jurisdictional challenge. Section 901(a) declares that “all the territorial sea of the United States,” as defined by Presidential Proclamation 5928, is within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction for Title 18 purposes. Because the proclamation defines the territorial sea as extending twelve nautical miles from the coastal baseline, the word “all” includes the first three nautical miles. The court treated AEDPA as an additional jurisdictional category rather than a mere amendment of 18 U.S.C. § 7(1), whose exclusion of state waters still governs non-Title 18 offenses.
The panel nevertheless vacated Le’s conviction. Under United States v. Symington, a juror may be removed only if the evidence leaves the court firmly convinced the impetus is unrelated to her position on the merits. BJR’s own statement tied her crisis to pressure to reach a particular verdict, and the foreperson’s concern about her vote plus the district court’s acknowledgment that she might be a holdout reinforced that link. Mental-health distress caused by disagreement over the merits cannot be an independent ground for removal; because BJR could not continue, declaring a mistrial was the only constitutionally permissible course, not seating an alternate.
Assuming without deciding that plain-error review applied, the panel found all prongs satisfied: Symington and later cases made the error clear; the contrast between the original jury’s three days without a verdict and the reconstituted jury’s rapid convictions showed a reasonable probability of a different result, including a hung jury; and allowing removal of a disagreeing juror would seriously damage the fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings. Le’s consent did not waive review because jury unanimity is nonwaivable. The court vacated Le’s conviction and remanded for further proceedings, requiring a new trial.
Key Takeaways
- AEDPA section 901(a) brings the first three nautical miles from shore within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction for Title 18 crimes.
- A juror’s mental-health crisis cannot justify removal when it stems from pressure or disagreement over the merits.
- When such a juror cannot continue deliberating, the Sixth Amendment requires a mistrial rather than an alternate.
- The reconstituted jury’s rapid convictions after BJR’s replacement supported the substantial-rights prong of plain-error review.
- A defendant’s consent cannot waive review of a juror removal that violates the nonwaivable unanimity guarantee.
Why It Matters
The decision separates two questions: Congress validly authorized this federal prosecution in coastal waters, but that ruling could not cure the constitutional defect in the verdict. The jurisdictional holding also preserves concurrent state authority over territorial waters rather than displacing California’s power.
The opinion applies the holdout-juror rule concretely: courts may remove jurors for genuinely independent illness, misconduct, or bias, but not for distress caused by pressure to change a vote. The panel acknowledged the trial judge’s difficult position and BJR’s inability to continue, yet held a mistrial was required. It left open the government’s high-seas theory, the admissibility of BJR’s post-trial declarations under Rule 606(b), and Le’s remaining arguments.