Venue for Offshore Environmental Crimes: The Seaward Limits of the Federal Judicial Districts

• Main Author: Cowan, M. Benjamin
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law 1996
• Subjects: environmental crimes; federalism; state sovereignty; Environmental Law; Law; Prudhoe Bay; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol49/iss3/7; https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2190&context=vlr

Consider the following scenario: USA Oil, an American company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in California, has been conducting ongoing oil drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The company operates three oil platforms off the Texas coast. One is located two miles offshore, another six miles offshore, and the third ten miles offshore. Federal authorities receive notice that on several occasions since the company began operating these rigs, it deliberately allowed large quantities of oil to leak into the Gulf from each of them. The government seeks to indict USA Oil on three counts of violating the Clean Water Act, as amended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. The U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of Texas coordinates the investigation as all relevant documents, witnesses, and evidence are located in that district. All of USA Oil's executive officers reside near the company's principal place of business in San Diego, in the Southern District of California. The rig foreman in charge of USA Oil's Gulf of Mexico operations at the time the violations occurred has since left the company and now lives and works for another company near Prudhoe Bay, in the District of Alaska. Where should the government file the indictments? The United States Constitution requires that the trial be held in the district in which the crime was committed, and the government must prove that venue is proper by a preponderance of the evidence. Failure to prove venue in a criminal trial precludes a conviction, and if a verdict of acquittal results from that failure, such failure leads to a double jeopardy bar to reindictment in the appropriate district. Therefore, the government must make an airtight determination at the outset of the prosecution as to where proper venue lies. There are three separate venue provisions for the trial of federal crimes. 18 U.S.C. § 3237 stipulates that venue for offenses begun in one district and completed in another, or for offenses committed in more than one ...