{"id":7885,"date":"2026-07-20T21:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7885"},"modified":"2026-07-20T21:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:05:19","slug":"supreme-court-to-decide-if-man-will-lose-his-plane-over-illicit-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7885","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court to decide if man will lose his plane over illicit beer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Ken Jouppi, a pilot in Alaska. (Institute for Justice)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Pilot Ken Jouppi was about to take off in his 1969 Cessna airplane to shuttle a passenger to a remote village in Alaska when state troopers stopped the plane and searched it.<\/p>

Read more George Santos is heading to reality TV. Other politicians have done the same.<\/a><\/p>\n

They found a six-pack of Budweiser and more beer among the passenger\u2019s groceries, a total of nine gallons. That was a problem because Jouppi and his passenger were bound for Beaver, a \u201cdry\u201d village that bans alcohol.<\/p>\n

The state has since sought to confiscate Jouppi\u2019s plane over the 2012 incident. But Jouppi has challenged that penalty for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to weigh Jouppi\u2019s argument that taking away his plane amounts to a violation of the Constitution\u2019s guarantee to be free of \u201cexcessive fines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court will review Jouppi\u2019s appeal of an Alaska Supreme Court opinion that found the state could confiscate the plane, valued at $95,000, because \u201cthe illegal importation of even a six-pack of beer causes grave societal harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state argues that the harm is real: Many small communities in Alaska ban or restrict alcohol because they lack the law enforcement and public health resources to combat alcohol abuse and alcohol-fueled violence.<\/p>

Read more What off-ramps are there with Iran?<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that many communities are accessible primarily by air, the legislature provided that any airplane used to illegally import alcohol into a dry community was subject to forfeiture,\u201d the state wrote in its brief to the court.<\/p>\n

At trial in 2013, Jouppi was found guilty of knowingly trying to transport beer to the village \u2014 a misdemeanor. (A trooper testified that Jouppi would have had to be \u201cblind\u201d not to notice the six-pack in a grocery bag on the plane.) He was fined $1,500 and sentenced to three days in jail. The passenger, who said she was bringing the beer as a gift to her husband, pleaded guilty to the same crime.<\/p>\n

Alaska courts have tussled over whether the state could confiscate the airplane, which presently sits on a tarmac in Alaska. <\/b>Jouppi and his attorneys argue that would be disproportional to the gravity of his offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in my 80s now, and I\u2019ve 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,\u201d Jouppi said in a news release<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n

He is being represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal nonprofit. The high court is likely to hear oral arguments in Jouppi\u2019s case after it begins its new term in October.<\/p>

Read more Sen. Darline Graham will seek full term to her late brother\u2019s seat<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pilot who was about to transport beer to a \u201cdry\u201d village argues Alaska\u2019s effort to confiscate his plane violates a constitutional protection against \u201cexcessive fines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court to decide if man will lose his plane over illicit beer - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7885\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court to decide if man will lose his plane over illicit beer - 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