‘United States’ refers to all places under American jurisdiction.
Kravitch ’88 [Phyllis Adele Kravitch; August 29, 1988; Federal Judge on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals; Westlaw, “United States v. Goggin,” 853 F.2d 843]
The government strenuously maintains that the district court's instruction was not erroneous at all, as the district court simply combined the Eleventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction on 21 U.S.C. § 952(a) with the statutory definition of the term “United States,” 21 U.S.C. § 802(28).5 We note, however, that appellants' disagreement, closely analyzed, is not with the district court's definition of the term “United States,” but rather with its lack of explanation of the term “outside.” Assuming arguendo that the district court's instruction on the term “outside” was incomplete, the error, if any occurred, was not “plain.”
<<FOOTNOTE 5>>
“The term ‘United States’, when used in a geographic sense, means all places and waters, continental or insular, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” 21 U.S.C. § 802(28).