D.D.C.: The DEA merely watching an arrest in Colombia is not “directly effect[ing] an arrest” in violation of 22 U.S.C. § 2291(c)(1)

The DEA merely watching an arrest in Colombia is not “directly effect[ing] an arrest” in violation of 22 U.S.C. § 2291(c)(1). United States v. Larrahondo, 885 F. Supp. 2d 209 (D. D.C. 2012):

The Court is likewise not persuaded by the argument that the Mansfield Amendment supports suppression of this evidence. Anturi has presented no persuasive argument as to how an agent’s participation in an arrest actually made by Colombian law enforcement falls under the statute’s prohibition on U.S. officers’ “directly effect[ing] an arrest,” 22 U.S.C. § 2291(c)(1). Anturi’s interpretation would read the word “directly” out of the statute. See United States v. Bourdet, 477 F. Supp. 2d 164, 174-76 (D.D.C. 2007) (Bates, J.) (“A United States agent providing assistance to a foreign official or merely being present as a foreign official makes an arrest is more accurately described, at most, as indirectly effecting the arrest ….”). Furthermore, even if the Court were to agree that the DEA’s behavior here violated the Mansfield Amendment, it is far from clear that suppression of evidence would be the appropriate remedy. See id. (“[T]he Mansfield Amendment is far removed from the concerns of a defendant’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.”). But in any event, no violation has been shown.