Alaska doesn’t mess around when it comes to illegal alcohol, authorizing severe penalties for anyone who allows it to be brought into communities where it’s banned.
So when a passenger on an airplane into Beaver, a remote village, was caught with a six-pack of beer, the state came down hard on the pilot, Kenneth Jouppi, seizing his 1969 Cessna airplane — the equivalent of a $95,000 fine, over six cans of Budweiser.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would take up Mr. Jouppi’s challenge, arguing the Constitution prohibits that sort of excessive penalty.
“The Excessive Fines Clause was built for cases like this,” Mr. Jouppi’s lawyers told the court in urging the justices to hear the case.
Mr. Jouppi’s lawyers said their case offers the court a chance to push back against states increasingly eager to use civil fines to try to shape behavior — and enjoy the extra revenue.
It’s made worse by inconsistent application of fines, and the failure to match penalties to the crime.
They said Mr. Jouppi’s case was a good example, giving the justices a chance to make clear that courts should be required to look at specific defendants’ wrongdoing, not treat cases in the abstract.
The flight in question took place in 2012, when Mr. Jouppi flew a passenger from Fairbanks to Beaver, a town that had recently gone “dry,” banning sales, import and possession of alcohol.
The passenger was heading to Beaver to reunite with her husband and celebrate her birthday. She was carrying three cases of beer — Budweiser and Bud Light — for him.
As Mr. Jouppi loaded the plane state troopers arrived and searched the plane, found the beer and confronted the pilot. He said he had no idea the beer was there, but the troopers said he would have been able to see at least one six-pack of Budweiser sticking out of a shopping bag.
He was convicted of a misdemeanor of knowingly transporting alcohol into a dry community and sentenced to a $1,500 fine, three days in jail and three years’ probation.
But the state said he also had to forfeit his Cessna.
Mr. Jouppi argued that the beer never reached Beaver, but an appeals court rejected that argument.
Then Mr. Jouppi argued the fine was excessive. A lower state court agreed but the case ended up in the state’s supreme court, which found for Alaska, ruling that authorities were justified in grabbing the $95,000 airplane over a six-pack of beer.
The state justices said Alaska’s legislature intentionally wrote harsh penalties for importing alcohol, and the courts would respect that decision.
Alaska had urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to take the case, arguing that the state faces “unique difficulties” in controlling alcohol, and it needs the threat — and sometimes the reality — of major penalties in order to win compliance.
“Alcohol abuse is a serious problem in rural Alaska, and airplanes are sometimes the only realistic means to commit the crime of alcohol importation,” state Attorney General Stephen J. Cox told the justices. “Jouppi was convicted for his own knowing and intentional misconduct, and forfeiture removes the business asset that was the means used to commit the offense.”
Four justices had to vote in favor of taking the case for the court to grant it time.
It will be heard in the court’s next term, which starts in October.
