United States v. Aston Winter, Howard Charles Towne, Stanton Davis and William Michael Parks

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge:

On March 8, 1973, at a point on the high seas approximately 35 miles from the coast of Florida and 11.9 miles from the nearest island of the Bahamas, 1 United States Coast Guard officers boarded the American owned M/V Big L which at the time was being towed by the American owned M/V Adventurer III and promptly located over a half a ton of marijuana which they knew to be aboard. The four members of the M/V Big L’s crew, appellants Winter and Davis (both Jamaican nationals), appellant Towne (an American citizen) and co-defendant Saunders 2 (a Bahamian national) were…