The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in December in a case that could reshape how courts apply the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on excessive fines, a legal question that has lingered for decades and now centers on an 82-year-old Alaska pilot, a six-pack of beer, and a $95,000 airplane.
Kenneth Jouppi was operating a one-man air taxi service with his personally owned 1969 Cessna in 2012 when Alaska state troopers searched his plane on a runway in Fairbanks. They found alcohol on board, including a six-pack that was plainly visible. Jouppi was preparing to fly a customer and her groceries to Beaver, a remote village near the center of the state that had banned the possession and sale of alcohol within its limits. Although having beer on board was not inherently illegal, Jouppi was convicted of alcohol importation, a misdemeanor. He has said he was unaware the woman had brought the beer with her.
The Alaska Supreme Court subsequently held that under the local alcohol importation ban, the state was required to confiscate Jouppi's Cessna. Jouppi has argued that the seizure of his plane, valued at roughly $95,000, violates the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause. The Supreme Court will now decide whether he is right, taking up a question that has received only limited attention from the justices over the years.
Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, described the case as «the case that libertarians and freedom-minded people have been hoping for for years.» He pointed to the historical roots of the excessive fines prohibition, tracing it to the Magna Carta of 1215, the English charter that limited the king's power and established the principle that rulers are subject to the law. Stimson said the ban on excessive fines is backed by «8 centuries of proportionality.»
At the heart of the dispute is how proportionality should be measured. Alaska argues the plane was worth less than 10 times the maximum possible fine of $10,000. Jouppi's attorneys counter that the relevant comparison is the sentence he actually received: the minimum $1,500 fine and three days in jail. The Supreme Court will consider whether proportionality should be assessed against the maximum penalty allowed by law or the specific punishment imposed in Jouppi's case.
Stimson dismissed Alaska's emphasis on the purpose of local dry-village rules and the state's concerns about alcoholism. «All of that's irrelevant,» he said. «If it was that important, they would have made it a felony and they would have made it a really serious felony with a lot of jail time and a huge forfeiture. They made it a misdemeanor. He was convicted of a misdemeanor and he got three days in jail.»
He also highlighted that the trial judge twice refused to take Jouppi's plane, finding that the state's request violated the Eighth Amendment. «So even the trial judge, when he had two bites of the apple, refused to take the plane,» Stimson said. He noted that Jouppi is an Air Force veteran whose only income besides Social Security came from flying villagers as a taxi service. «If the government can do that, the state or federal government can take your means of livelihood away from you for a misdemeanor, we're in deep, deep trouble as a country.»
The case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to seriously rein in the ability of state and local governments to impose asset forfeiture, a longtime goal of civil libertarians. Stimson noted the court has ruled on the excessive fines clause only five times and has «never really laid out exactly what constitutes an excessive fine.» He pointed to an amicus brief filed by the Buckeye Institute in Ohio that detailed incentives built into the system that can be abused by law enforcement. «They talk about all the incentives built into the system that can be and are abused by law enforcement when they arrest you for this crime and they take all of this of yours over here, or they arrest you for this little tiny crime and then they take this,» Stimson said.
A ruling in Jouppi's favor could set a national standard for when fines and forfeitures become constitutionally excessive, affecting not only Alaska but every state and local government that relies on asset seizure. The justices are expected to hear the case in December, with a decision likely by next summer.