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Civil Asset Forfeiture

Supreme Court Will Consider Excessive Fines Clause Asset Forfeiture Case

It will review Alaska's confiscation of a $95,000 plane arising from the pilot's illegal transportation of up to 72 cans of beer.

Ilya Somin | 7.21.2026 12:49 PM

Ken Jouppi. (Institute for Justice)

In Timbs v. Indiana (2019), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment is incorporated against state governments. It also ruled that asset forfeitures - confiscation of property that may have been used to facilitate commission of a crime - qualify as fines. But it gave little guidance on what exactly qualifies as "excessive." This lack of clarity stimulated all sorts of uncertainty and disagreement in lower state and federal courts.

Recently, the Court decided to hear the case of Jouppi v. Alaska. Jouppi is an Alaska "bush pilot," flying passengers to remote areas. In 2012, Alaska authorities caught him transporting a passenger who had 72 cans of beer with her, to a "dry" village where importation of alcohol is banned. State law criminalizes transportation of alcoholic beverages there.

For this crime, Jouppi was fined $1500 and sentenced to three days in jail. But the state then used its asset forfeiture law to confiscate........

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