Beer Aboard a Flight to a Dry Alaska Town Costs a Pilot His $95,000 Plane
A six-pack of beer at the corner store will generally set you back $10 or $15, maybe a tad more. But even a small batch of the most artisanal locally brewed I.P.A. isn't $95,000.
But that's how much a cargo of beer has cost Kenneth J. Jouppi, 82, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, who piloted charter flights in Alaska until around 2014.
On April 18, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that he could be forced to forfeit his $95,000 plane as a penalty for trying to fly alcohol into a dry Alaskan community that does not allow for the importation, sale or possession of alcohol, according to court records.
In April 2012, a state trooper stopped Mr. Jouppi before his plane took off from Fairbanks, Alaska, after the trooper said that he saw Mr. Jouppi 'opening and closing boxes' that contained beer, according to court records.
The trooper said 'it would have been impossible' for Mr. Jouppi not to see at least one six-pack out of 72 beers that were on the plane.
Mr. Jouppi denied knowing that the beer was on board. (Mr. Jouppi could not recall, and the court papers did not specify, the brand of beer.)
Mr. Jouppi was taking a client 110 miles north to Beaver, Alaska, a community of about 80 people. The community, which was founded in 1907 amid discoveries of gold, has a small air strip and is most easily accessible by plane.
After a jury found that Mr. Jouppi tried to illegally bring alcohol to Beaver, he was sentenced to three days in jail and he and his company were fined a total of $3,000. But the trial court declined to confiscate his plane, a Cessna 206 that fits six passengers and that was valued at $95,000.
The state appealed and an appeals court agreed that the plane should be confiscated, according to court records. Eventually, the case reached the Alaska Supreme Court.
The court agreed with the state that confiscating the plane did not violate the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
'We hold, as a matter of law, that the owner of the airplane failed to establish that forfeiture would be unconstitutionally excessive,' the Alaska Supreme Court concluded.
The plane is no longer in Mr. Jouppi's possession and its fate was not immediately clear.
Robert John, Mr. Jouppi's lawyer, said that he and his client will seek to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
'When they took my plane, I was forced into retirement,' Mr. Jouppi said on Friday. 'You spend a lot of sleepless nights. It hasn't been a pleasant experience at all.'
In an email on Friday, Donald Soderstrom, the assistant attorney general for the office of criminal appeals, called the State Supreme Court's decision 'reasonable even when limited to one six-pack.'
'Alcohol abuse has been a problem in Alaska for many years, including in rural communities that are off the road system and are accessible primarily by air,' he said.
Mr. Jouppi, who is Finnish, said he remains steadfast in his attempt to get his case heard by the country's highest court.
'I don't know if you're familiar with the Finnish people,' he said, 'but we're awful damn stubborn.'
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