State v. Jouppi

397 P.3d 1026, 2017 WL 1967744, 2017 Alas. App. LEXIS 72
CourtCourt of Appeals of Alaska
DecidedMay 12, 2017
DocketCourt of Appeals A-11819, A-11829, and A-11830
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 397 P.3d 1026 (State v. Jouppi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Jouppi, 397 P.3d 1026, 2017 WL 1967744, 2017 Alas. App. LEXIS 72 (Ala. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

OPINION

Judge MANNHEIMER.

The State of Alaska prosecuted Kenneth John Jouppi and the air carrier that he and his wife owned, Ken Air, LLC, for unlawful importation of alcoholic beverages into a “local option” community (ie., a community that had exercised its option under AS 04.11.491 to prohibit the importation of alcohol), 1 Following a jury trial, both Jouppi and Ken Air were convicted of this crime.

At sentencing, the district court denied the State’s request to order forfeiture, of the airplane involved. The State appealed the district court’s refusal to order forfeiture of the airplane, and both Jouppi and Ken Air then filed cross-appeals, challenging their convictions on various grounds.

For the reasons explained in this opinion, we affirm the defendants’ convictions, but we reverse the trial court’s ruling regarding the forfeiture of the airplane. We conclude that, under the pertinent statutes, forfeiture of the airplane was mandatory.

*1028 Underlying facts

Kenneth Jouppi and his wife were the two principals of Ken Air, LLC, and Jouppi was the only pilot working for Ken Air, On April 3, 2012, Alaska State Troopers were conducting surveillance of Jouppi and his airplane at the Fairbanks airport. The troopers were there to execute a search warrant for the airplane (a warrant that had been issued in connection with another investigation).

As the troopers watched, two women— Helen Nicholia and Irene Todd — drove up to Jouppi’s airplane. Jouppi was scheduled to. fly Nicholia to Beaver, a local option village.

Nicholia and Todd’s vehicle contained several boxes and semi-transparent grocery bags. The troopers observed Jouppi opening and closing these boxes and bags, and redis-i tributing them contents to All up the containers. Jouppi then loaded this cargo into his airplane (with no assistance from the women). Some of the boxes , that Jouppi loaded into the plane were open, and the others were loosely closed. Based on the way Jouppi was carrying the boxes, they appeared to be heavy.

Once the plane was loaded, Helen Nicholia entered the plane on the copilot side. Jouppi got into the pilot’s seat, started the engine, and prepared to take off. (The other woman, Irene Todd, drove away.)

At this point, the troopers contacted Joup-pi and had him shut off the engine. They then executed the search warrant.

When the troopers looked through the plane’s windows, they could see beer in a plastic grocery bag sitting unsecured in the plane. The troopers later testified that this beer was in plain view, obvious to any observer. The troopers took additional photographs as they removed the cargo from the plane.

The troopers found beer in various boxes and bags onboard the plane; they removed this beer from its containers and seized it as evidence. The troopers then returned the boxes and bags to Nicholia, since these boxes and bags contained Nicholia’s other groceries.

Based on this incident, Jouppi, Ken Air, and Helen Nicholia were all charged with importation of alcoholic beverages into a local option community, in violation of AS 04.11.499. Nicholia ■ pleaded guilty to this charge. Jouppi and Ken Air invoked their right to trial.

The defendants’ request for a jury instruction on spoliation of evidence

At trial, the defendants took the position that the troopers had improperly destroyed evidence by failing to take custody of, and preserve, the plastic grocery bags and the cardboard boxes that the beer was found in. (As described in the preceding section, the troopers returned Nicholia’s boxes and bags to her after they removed the beer.)

With respect to the Fred Meyer plastic grocery bags, the defendants argued that even though beer ■ cans might be visible through the sides of a typical Fred Meyer grocery bag, there was a possibility that the grocery bags found in Jouppi’s airplane were less transparent than a typical grocery bag, and that the beer might not have been visible through the plastic film of these particular bags.

With respect to the cardboard boxes, the defendants argued that, if the troopers had preserved these boxes, the defendants might have been able to demonstrate that all of the beer found in Jouppi’s plane might have fit within these boxes when their.-tops were folded over and closed. Such a demonstration would potentially -support Jouppi’s. position that Nicholia had concealed all of the beer in the cardboard boxes, and that none of it was visible to Jouppi.

Based on these arguments, the defendants asked the judge to instruct the jurors that, because the State failed to collect and preserve the grocery bags and the boxes, the jurors should assume that the grocery bags and the boxes would have been favorable evidence for the defense. •'

(This type of instruction is commonly referred to as a “Thome” instruction, because this was the remedy granted in Thorne v. Department of Public Safety, 774 P.2d 1326, 1331-32 (Alaska 1989).)

*1029 The trial judge denied the defendants’ request for a Thome instruction. He noted that the police generally have no duty to collect physical evidence — only a duty to preserve the evidence once they have actually collected it. See Selig v. State, 286 P.3d 767, 772 (Alaska App. 2012). Here, the judge found that the troopers “did not lose or destroy any evidence”. Rather, the troopers chose not to collect the evidence: they photographed the grocery bags and the boxes, and then they returned these bags and boxes (along with the non-alcoholic groceries in them) to Nicho-lia, who was the owner of this personal property.

The judge concluded that the troopers had acted properly, and that the defendants were not entitled to the Thome instruction that they requested.

On appeal, the defendants renew their claim that they were entitled to a jury instruction telling the jurors that, because the State returned the plastic grocery bags and cardboard boxes to Nicholia, the jurors should assume that this evidence would have been favorable to Jouppi’s claim that he was unaware of any alcoholic beverages in his airplane.

We' reject the defendants’ argument for three reasons. First, we agree with the trial judge that, because the troopers never collected the bags and the boxes, they were not required to preserve them.

Second, with respect to the Fred Meyer grocery bags, the defendants offered no evidence that these bags are not uniform — ie., no evidence that there is a substantial variation in the coloration or thickness of Fred Meyer plastic film grocery bags, such that beer might be visible through the sides of one Fred Meyer grocery bag but not visible through the sides of another.

Third, with respect to the cardboard boxes, we note that (according to the evidence) the boxes contained other groceries besides beer.

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Related

State of Alaska v. Kenneth John Jouppi
519 P.3d 653 (Court of Appeals of Alaska, 2022)

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Bluebook (online)
397 P.3d 1026, 2017 WL 1967744, 2017 Alas. App. LEXIS 72, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jouppi-alaskactapp-2017.