An Alaska Man's $95,000 Plane Was Seized Over a 6-Pack of Beer. Now He's Taking His Case to the Supreme Court.

An Alaska man is petitioning the Supreme Court to consider whether the government's seizure of his $95,000 plane for transporting an illicit six-pack of beer is an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, filed a petition for writ of certiorari today on behalf of Ken Jouppi, an 82-year-old Alaskan bush pilot, asking the Supreme Court to rule on whether states should consider the gravity of a defendant's specific offense, rather than an abstract view of the general crime. Jouppi was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2012 when state troopers searched his...