Ruling threatens US power as world’s high-seas drug police


              FILE - Journalists, politicians, and federal officials stand along with members of the U.S. Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies, as they view more than one billion dollars worth of seized cocaine and marijuana aboard Coast Guard Cutter James at Port Everglades, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Coast Guard said the haul included approximately 54,500 pounds of cocaine and 15,800 pounds of marijuana from multiple interdictions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
            
              FILE - A man walks amidst bundles of seized cocaine and marijuana, as the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies prepare to unload more than one billion dollars worth of seized drugs from Coast Guard Cutter James at Port Everglades, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Coast Guard said the haul included approximately 54,500 pounds of cocaine and 15,800 pounds of marijuana from multiple interdictions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
            
              This undated photo provided by his mother, Juana Reyes, in April 2022 shows Jeffri Dávila-Reyes prior to his arrest in 2015. Seven years into his 10-year sentence, Dávila-Reyes’ conviction has been thrown out in a little-noticed ruling that threatens a key weapon in the United States’ war on drugs: A decades-old law that gives the U.S. broad authority to make arrests on the high seas anywhere in the world, even if the drugs aren’t bound for the U.S. (Family photo via AP)
            
              In this photo obtained from U.S. federal court records, Jeffri Dávila-Reyes, third from left, and two others hold their hands in the air as they are intercepted in the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 29, 2015. Dávila-Reyes says he’s still mystified how he ended up serving hard time in a U.S. federal prison. His cocaine bust at sea was closer to his homeland of Costa Rica than the United States, and the few kilos of drugs he was carrying were bound for Jamaica rather than American shores. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
Ruling threatens US power as world’s high-seas drug police