Alaska pilot penalized for six-pack wins Supreme Court review

After Alaska tried to take his airplane for illegally carrying a six-pack of beer, an 82-year-old Air Force veteran says he’ll fight to protect against government overreach at the Supreme Court next term.WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether an Alaskan pilot must surrender his plane for illegally carrying a six-pack of Budweiser to a dry village.Alaska wants to force 82-year-old Air Force veteran Ken Jouppi to forfeit his $95,000 Cessna airplane after state troopers discovered beer in a passengers’ luggage before a 2012 flight from Fairbanks to Beaver.But Jouppi says he petitioned the Supreme Court for review because the case is about more than him and his airplane.“I’ve been fighting this for over a decade because I see it as my duty to ensure that the Bill of Rights actually means something in protecting against government overreach,” Jouppi said in a statement provided by his lawyers.Jouppi asked the justices to review the constitutionality of the mandatory sanction, arguing that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines. He claims the gravity of the offense and wrongdoing should be considered in such cases.During the 2012 flight in question, Jouppi was scheduled to transport a repeat customer on KenAir, his one-man air taxi service through the Alaskan wilderness. Unbeknownst to Jouppi, the passenger had three cases of beer packed in her luggage, along with many other groceries for a trip to visit her husband.Jouppi said he had no knowledge of any alcohol within the passenger’s luggage, but officers maintained that at least one six-pack of Budweiser was visible in a shopping bag. Jouppi was charged with a misdemeanor offense of knowingly transporting an alcoholic beverage into a dry community.A trial judge found him guilty and imposed a $1,500 fine and three days imprisonment. However, under state law, the violation also carries a mandatory forfeiture of the plane used to transport the alcohol.An appeals court called for additional proceedings to consider the facts of Jouppi’s case, but the Alaska Supreme Court reversed, unanimously upholding the airplane forfeiture as constitutional.Jouppi asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Alaska’s “plane-for-six-pack” standard, arguing that the state court examined his offense in purely abstract terms.“The result: a near-dispositive thumb on the government’s side of the scale and a blank check for forfeitures like the one below,” Jouppi wrote in his petition.Sam Gedge, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represents Jouppi, said the excessive fines clause was built for cases like this.“As government agencies increasingly exploit fines and forfeitures to pad their budgets, it’s vital that the Supreme Court make clear that the excessive fines clause is a meaningful check on government overreach,” Gedge said in a statement. “We’re confident that it will do so here.”Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads