Supreme Court Will Decide If A Pilot’s Plane Can Be Seized Over Beer In A Passenger’s Groceries

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear Jouppi v. Alaska, the case of a pilot in Alaska whose plane was confiscated because there was beer in a passenger’s groceries. The fight comes down to whether the punishment is proportionate to the crime – whether having a plane seized is out of whack with what the pilot actually did, or whether the government can weigh it against the government’s view of broader social harm (in a way that can justify almost any economic punishment, rendering constitutional limits meaningless). Alaska is permitted to punish people who illegally bring alcohol into communities that have voted to prohibit it. But there’s a constitutional problem with the punishment. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from imposing excessively high monetary fines or seizing property in a manner grossly disproportionate to the crime. Can the government say ‘alcohol is a scourge’ so any amount of alcohol justifies any seizure? On April 3, 2012, bush pilot Ken Jouppi was preparing to fly a passenger and her groceries 110 miles from Fairbanks to Beaver, a small community that had voted to ban the sale, possession and importation of alcohol. The passenger had packed three cases of beer, totaling 72 cans or nine gallons, which were meant for her husband. State troopers had been investigating the pilot and had a search warrant for the Cessna aircraft. They waited until it was loaded and about to take off, then descended on him. The beer never left Fairbanks. The pilot was convicted of the attempt to transport alcohol. He’s now represented by the Institute for Justice. It’s not clear that the pilot, now 82 years old, even knew any alcohol was on board, though a state trooper testified that one six pack was visible through a grocery bag. The pilot says he didn’t search passengers’ belongings and didn’t know it was there. He was sentenced to was 180 days (only 3 of which had to be served), a $3,000 fine (half of which was suspended) and given three years’ probation. That wasn’t the end of it, because the state went after his $95,000 1969 Cessna U206D. This wasn’t even a felony (there was a 12-gallon threshold for that), but aircraft forfeiture is mandatory when used to facilitate illegal alcohol importation regardless of quantity and even for a first-time misdemeanor. That’s a harsher treatment than for cars, boats and snowmobiles. The trial court ordered forfeiture, then reconsidered and rejected it. The state appealed, and the court held that taking the entire $95,000 plane would be an excessive fine. A state appeals court wanted more facts – whether the pilot knew about six beers or 72, whether there was related misconduct, what harm he actually caused and whether the plane was important to his livelihood. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded that none of that actually mattered, unanimously supporting the full forfeiture regardless even assuming the pilot knew about one six pack and had zero related misconduct. A final forfeiture was ordered in June 2025. The state’s Supreme Court filing argues that he’s a repeat offender, which he disputes, but actually doesn’t matter – since the Alaska court said surrendering an aircraft, regardless of value would be justified no matter what the factual record. The legal maximum fine was $10,000, and the state Supreme Court said forfeiting the plane was “only” 9.5 times that amount. (The actual fine paid in this case was $1,500 and the plane was worth 63 times that amount.) Alaska’s argument is that alcohol is bad, not that the particular alcohol the pilot flew caused any specific harms. There’s a federal circuit split. The 9th circuit (which covers Alaska) supports the pilot, the 11th circuit doesn’t. So in Alaska, a pilot can have his plane taken for a single beer packed onboard that’s headed for a dry community if he’s tried in state court but not in federal court. It seems like the relevant precedent here is United States v. Bajakajian. A man tried to leave the country with $357,144 in cash, but failed to file the required currency report. You don’t just have to declare more than $10,000 cash when you arrive. You have to declare it when you depart, too, even though there’s no checkpoint for that (you have to go find customs at the airport from which you’re flying out of the country and submit the form). All the money came from lawful sources. There was no connection to any crime. The Supreme Court said that taking all of it would be grossly disproportionate to the crime of failing to fill out the FinCen form. In that case, arguing that currency reporting laws are part of fighting money laundering and other crimes, so significant forfeitures are proportional to the overall social harm of the conduct with which this was part did not work. It’s exactly the same argument Alaska is making. I have written extensively about civil asset forfeiture at airports where law enforcement takes cash without charging the traveler and forces the owner to prove the money’s innocence through a byzantine process. Ironically, Alaska Airlines was just fined only $165,000 for allowing intoxicated passengers to board 11 flights in violation of federal rules. Their planes weren’t taken, but the flights weren’t to a dry town. This case is about a criminal forfeiture after a conviction. But the punishment still has to fit the crime. The case is expected to be heard during the Court’s upcoming term, with a decision by June 2027. Topics on this page