Man At Risk Of Losing $95,000 Plane For Transporting Unopened Six Pack Of Beer Takes His Case To SCOTUS

The Supreme Court will consider whether Alaska went too far when it confiscated a pilot’s $95,000 airplane over an attempt to bring beer into a dry community, according to Yahoo News.

The case dates to 2012, when longtime Alaska charter pilot Ken Jouppi agreed to fly a passenger from Fairbanks to Beaver, where alcohol was prohibited. The passenger had 72 cans of beer in her luggage. Most were boxed, but a six-pack was visible in a grocery bag.

Troopers found the alcohol before takeoff. Jouppi was convicted of a misdemeanor after a court determined he had been willfully blind to the beer. He received three days in jail and a $1,500 fine, but Alaska law also required forfeiture of his airplane, worth about $95,000.

The Alaska Supreme Court upheld the seizure, reasoning in part that illegal alcohol imports contribute to the broader problems caused by drinking in rural communities. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the decision and will hear arguments in Jouppi v. Alaska on December 1.

Yahoo writes that the Cato Institute, backing Jouppi, argues that the state’s approach gives too little weight to what Jouppi himself actually did and how severe the punishment was relative to his offense. Its brief points to a legal tradition stretching back to the Magna Carta, which held that punishment for a “trivial offence” should reflect the seriousness of the conduct and should not be so large as to destroy someone’s livelihood.

Cato also cites the Supreme Court’s 1998 ruling in United States v. Bajakajian. There, the Court rejected the forfeiture of $357,144 from a man who failed to report that he was carrying the money overseas. The money was legally obtained, the offense caused little direct harm and the Court found the forfeiture excessive.

Jouppi, now 83 and an Air Force veteran with no prior criminal record, argues the same principle applies to his case. His airplane was worth more than 60 times the criminal fine he actually received.

The case could also determine whether a person’s financial circumstances should factor into an excessive-fines analysis. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a separate 2019 forfeiture case, treating identical property seizures as equal punishment would create a fiction “that taking away the same piece of property from a billionaire and from someone who owns nothing else punishes each person equally.”

A ruling for Jouppi could give courts clearer guidance on when property forfeitures cross the Eighth Amendment’s line from punishment into an excessive fine.