## Facts

- Flores, a U.S. citizen, was charged with murdering another U.S. citizen aboard a U.S.-flag merchant vessel.
- The vessel was anchored in a navigable river within the territorial waters of the Belgian Congo, remote from the sea and not salt or tidal.
- Flores was indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under Criminal Code § 272.
- The district court sustained a demurrer and discharged Flores, reasoning that the offense occurred within a foreign sovereign’s territorial waters and was outside federal jurisdiction.
- The United States sought review of the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress’s Article I power to define and punish piracies and felonies on the high seas limits the scope of federal admiralty and maritime jurisdiction under Article III.
2. Whether Criminal Code § 272 applies to a murder committed aboard a U.S. vessel while the vessel is within foreign territorial waters, and outside any particular state’s jurisdiction.
3. Whether, consistent with international law, the United States may punish offenses by its citizens on U.S.-flag vessels in foreign waters when the territorial sovereign has not asserted jurisdiction.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment sustaining the demurrer and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Article I “piracies and felonies” clause was held not to restrict the Article III grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; it supplements rather than limits federal power.
- Federal admiralty and maritime jurisdiction extends to crimes committed on U.S. vessels in navigable waters within the territorial jurisdiction of foreign sovereigns, even on inland rivers remote from the sea.
- Criminal Code § 272, using the constitutional phrase “within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States,” was construed to be coextensive with that jurisdiction and to cover crimes aboard U.S. vessels in foreign territorial waters.
- The usual presumption against extraterritorial application of federal criminal statutes was deemed inapplicable to U.S. merchant vessels.

## Legal Principles

- Article I’s power to define and punish piracies and felonies on the high seas does not limit the federal judicial power over “all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” under Article III.
- Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction includes offenses committed aboard U.S.-flag vessels in navigable waters within a foreign sovereign’s territorial jurisdiction.
- A federal criminal statute extending to offenses “within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States” may reach conduct on U.S. vessels in foreign territorial waters when the statute is intended to track the constitutional grant.
- Under principles of international law and comity, the territorial sovereign and the flag state may possess concurrent jurisdiction; absent assertion of local jurisdiction, the United States may punish offenses by its citizens committed on its vessels.

## Conclusion

The Court held that federal admiralty jurisdiction and the federal murder statute applied to a killing by a U.S. citizen aboard a U.S.-flag ship anchored in foreign territorial waters, and that Article I’s high-seas clause did not restrict Article III admiralty jurisdiction; the district court’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction was reversed and the case remanded.


United States v. Flores, 289 U.S. 137 (1933)