Posted on 07/20/2026 1:55:56 PM PDT by algore
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review an Alaska bush pilot’s claims that state authorities have tried to illegally seize his $95,000 airplane after a passenger brought a six-pack of beer on a flight bound for a dry village.
The pilot, Kenneth Jouppi, sued to block his plane’s seizure after he was convicted of an alcohol-related misdemeanor charge. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in the state’s favor that Jouppi’s plane was subject to criminal forfeiture laws.
On Monday, however, the nation’s highest court agreed to hear Jouppi’s case. He argues that taking his 1969 Cessna would violate the Eighth Amendment’s “Excessive Fines Clause.” Arguments are expected in the fall.
“I’m in my 80s now, and 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 released by his attorneys at the Institute for Justice.
In April 2012, Jouppi was preparing to fly a passenger from Fairbanks to a remote village, Beaver, where alcohol was banned. The passenger had packed beer with other groceries in her luggage. State Police troopers searched Jouppi’s plane before it departed and spotted a six-pack of Budweiser in a shopping bag.
Jouppi, his company and the passenger were charged with a misdemeanor offense of knowingly transporting an alcoholic beverage into a dry community. The passenger pleaded guilty. A jury convicted Jouppi and the company after a trial. A judge sentenced him to three days in jail.
Jouppi’s attorneys say Alaska’s high court examined his conduct “purely in abstract terms” and didn’t evaluate whether it was part of a broader pattern of criminal activity. And they say it wasn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
If it was night for a month straight, I could see alcohol being a problem
“I thought it was a passenger who smuggled it aboard.”
.
It was.
Some folks here seem to skip over the actual content and go with the headline.
.
Even a ramp inspection by the FAA may be refused and later satisfied. There has to be much more to the story.
I know it's against the rules, but if you read the article you will discover the answer.
Wow, for four years, I went down 1,800 miles of the Yukon River with 10 cases of beer stacked all over the boat and a case of Maclellan Scotch. I never got as far as Beaver which is almost to the Pacific Coast.
FEI, there’s a pretty good reason for outlawing alcohol in the villages along the Yukon and that is that the First Nation folks (residents) cannot handle alcohol. My guess is that half the villages along the Yukon bar alcohol. I know Ft. Yukon and Bethel don’t.
I can’t begin to measure the tons of booze I bought in Delaware, (no tax) and dropped it off at airports to event planners in other states. If anyone questions you, you can blow them off. Don’t Cooperate in the first place.
I guess “My Body, My Choice” only applies to the murder of innocents in Alaska.
You are so right! The beer was never taken to the location that forbid it. Such a mess!!
So let’s also have the state seize the grocery store where it was purchased, because they were obviously hip-deep in this heinous criminal conspiracy, too! /s
a six-pack of Budweiser in a shopping bag.
He should get the chair for that.
Civil forfeiture laws are laws that conservatives should be against. Its confiscation of property where YOU need to prove the items innocence. Broke a law, prove it in court and fine them but putting citizens in a position to prove property is innocent goes against all conservative beliefs. If they can do it for a plane, they can do it to your house, car etc.
Conservatives are ok with it under the guise of keeping the streets safe but the reality is a lot of local law enforcement agencies are becoming para military with the equipment they’re buying with these dollars.
On west I-80 out in the middle of nowhere, the Highway Patrol will pit signs up stating there are drug checkpoints two exits ahead to watch drivers that pull off on the first exit which was built and has little use outside of local farm families.
Lol!
This woke Alaska is a different pansy place than it was when I lived there in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“First Nation folks (residents) cannot handle alcohol. “
Walking down 4th Ave. in Anchorage the day after the BIA checks were cashed, we were stepping over passed-out drunks.
I have seen this same situation in Juneau too.
Heart breaking
This is a case of government run completely amuck.
The resolution should be time served, a small fine if never paid, and 40 hours of community service.
Whoever came up with this law for a minor violation needs 80(!) hours of community service. I suggest picking up trash along the roadside in my neck of the woods tomorrow: The forecast is for a dewpoint = 81 degrees, and the heat index = 116 degrees.* Then they get to watch 100 hours of AI lectures from Thomas Jefferson on the virtues of limited government, and 10 hours from me on the destructiveness of excessive, even if well intentioned, government.
*In the Youth Conservation Corps, for which I volunteered, we spent a week at that, one hot ‘n humid Southern Illinois summer. Every kid should experience it — we’d have far fewer litterbugs! (I really didn’t mind - we had considerably worse / tougher jobs, the scenery was great (except for the litter), and I caught a gorgeous 6’ black rat snake along one road.)
THIS is one example of why Americans HATE the many feckless, corrupt, unfair segments of local, state and federal government. The fact that this man needs to take his case to the SC to prevent the theft of his plane over a 6-pack is beyond beyond .... but there ya go. I'd like to believe that we have a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." I'm sorry to say that my experience with government institutions and my representatives suggest a different reality, i.e., we have "a "government of the government, by the government, for the government."
“”it appears that this guy hadn’t transported anything at that point””
I have to agree that that makes sense...doesn’t appear to have been a crime at that point!
Filed under “Things you learn when you read the excerpt”
Budweiser.
Yeah, wouldn't want any common sense applied to the law.
First, It was a passenger who packed it.
Second, how would the pilot stand to gain from it?
Stupid application of the law. Though you seem to be okay with it.
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