So an Alaskan bush pilot walks into the Supreme Court with a six-pack of beer. Sounds like the start of a good joke? Well, for Ken Jouppi, it is no laughing matter. Jouppi and his counsel at the Institute for Justice have just filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to appeal a decision from the Alaska Supreme Court that held the state could seize his $95,000 Cessna U206D airplane over a six-pack of beer found in a passenger’s bag of groceries.
Alaska has a state law allowing towns and villages to go “dry” and it is a state-level crime to “knowingly send, transport, or bring an alcoholic beverage” to such villages. Alaska Stat. § 04.11.499(a). The law sets penalties on the amount of alcohol, allowing for a class C felony for 10.5 liters of spirits or 12 gallons of beer. First-time offenders who transport smaller amounts are subject only to a class A misdemeanor. Id. § 04.16.200(e)(1)-(3). First-time offenders are also subject to a minimum sentence of three days’ imprisonment and a fine of $1,500. Id. § 04.16.200(g)(1)(A). Finally, there is a provision allowing for forfeiture. The law bizarrely mandates the forfeiture of a plane, regardless of the quantity and regardless of the seriousness of the offense. Id. § 04.16.220(a)(3)(C).
That brings us to the hapless (and now plane-less) Ken Jouppi.
Jouppi, now 82, flies people to remote villages, a common form of transportation in Alaska. He was ferrying a woman to the town of Beaver. She decided to bring beer back for her husband, three cases of beer in her luggage and a six-pack in a grocery bag. No one is suggesting that Jouppi knew about the beer cases or that he is expected to search the luggage of passengers.
During an inspection at the airport in Fairbanks on the morning of April 3, 2012, officers spotted a grocery bag and a visible six-pack of Budweiser.
The woman promptly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Jouppi went to trial and, while the jury did not find that he knew about the amount of beer in his plane, they found him guilty. The trial judge was sympathetic to Jouppi, sentencing him to the minimum executed sentence allowed by statute: a $1,500 fine for Jouppi (and another $1,500 for his company) and three days’ imprisonment. The judge further noted that “he has a stellar criminal record. Clean.”
The Alaskan authorities appealed the verdict. They wanted the plane.
The trial court ruled that the statute did not authorize forfeiture because the plane had not moved an inch toward Beaver; it was searched on the tarmac at Fairbanks. Thus, he reasoned, Jouppi had not “transport[ed] or facilitate[d] the transportation of . . . alcoholic beverages imported into a” dry village. Alaska Stat. § 04.16.220(a)(3)(C). The Alaska Court of Appeals disagreed and remanded the case.
On remand, the trial court held that the forfeiture would constitute an unconstitutionally excessive fine. It noted that, at most, Jouppi could have been aware of a six-pack of beer and that the gravity of the violation was minimal. Further, it said that this was not part of a larger operation or conspiracy. Everyone agreed that this was a dumb decision for a passenger to bring a gift to her beer-deprived husband.
The State appealed, and the court of appeals vacated the trial court’s judgment. It notably based its decision on the six-pack. It noted that the trial court also should have “address[ed] whether Jouppi’s violation of the bootlegging statute was related to, or comprised part of, other illegal activities.” It was again remanded for further proceedings.
The Alaskan Supreme Court then granted review and vacated the court of appeals’ judgment. App. 1a-29a. It held unanimously that forfeiting Jouppi’s airplane was constitutional “as a matter of law.” The Supreme Court also focused on the six-pack of beer and acknowledged that “Jouppi was convicted of only one instance of alcohol importation unconnected to other criminal activity.” However, the court held that “It is clear to us, that the legislature determined that the harm from even a six-pack of beer knowingly imported into a dry village is severe enough to warrant forfeiture of an aircraft” and “the forfeiture of Jouppi’s airplane is not grossly disproportional to the gravity of the offense for which he has been convicted and, therefore, the forfeiture does not violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment.”
The opinion runs afoul of prior holdings on the meaning of the Excessive Fines Clause. There appears to be a conflict between the interpretation of the Alaska Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (with federal jurisdiction over Alaska). The latter court has ruled that courts must look to “the specific actions of the violator rather than . . . taking an abstract view of the violation.” Pimentel v. City of Los Angeles, 974 F.3d 917, 923 (9th Cir. 2020).
The Institute of Justice lays out this precedent from various other courts in its petition for review.
The Institute was the group that won the decision in Timbs v. Indiana at the Supreme Court and twice at the Indiana Supreme Court. That case has obvious similarities to the Alaskan case. That case involved Tyson Timbs, who pleaded guilty to a relatively low-level drug offense and received only home detention, probation, and addiction treatment. However, Indiana also wanted to seize his $42,000 Land Rover. The Indiana Supreme Court found that the forfeiture was excessive given “the minimal severity” of the offense “for which he received the minimum possible sentence; the harm caused by dealing two grams of heroin to an undercover police officer; and the relationship of the dealing to Timbs’s earlier actions in purchasing drugs to feed his addiction.”
The Institute is correct that this case presents a clean record for the Court to clarify and amplify prior holdings on the scope of this clause. I will note that none of the balancing of the facts in the case weighed the relative worth of a Bud beer. For some, the introduction of Bud beer is unconscionable and worthy of the greatest sanction, particularly when Alaska produces its own superior Triple Oak-Aged “A Deal with the Devil” beer.