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By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear an appeal from an Alaskan bush pilot whose plane was seized by authorities after they discovered it was bound for a remote, dry village with beer on board.

The appeal from the 82-year-old pilot, Kenneth Jouppi, could have national implications if the 6-3 conservative court limits the ability of state and local governments to rely on asset forfeiture. Jouppi claims that the taking of his $95,000 Cessna for what amounted to a six-pack of beer violated the 8th Amendment’s bar on excessive fines.

The Supreme Court is likely to hear oral arguments in the case later this year or early next — and hand down a decision by next summer.

“The Excessive Fines Clause of the Constitution was built for cases like this,” said Sam Gedge, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which is representing the pilot. “As government agencies increasingly exploit fines and forfeitures to pad their budgets, it’s vital that the Supreme Court make clear that the Excessive Fines Clause is a meaningful check on government overreach.”

Jouppi says that the Budweiser and Bud Light found on his plane, which was packaged with other groceries, belonged to a passenger. He said that most of it was out of sight, but state police said one six-pack was in plain view inside a grocery bag. One trooper claimed that Jouppi would “have to be blind” not to have seen at least some of the alcohol and that “pilots with that bad of eyesight just don’t fly.”

Alaska told the Supreme Court that officials face “unique difficulties in combating alcohol abuse and its consequences” in remote parts of the state. The village at issue, Beaver, is home to fewer than 100 people and is “off the road system.” The community banned the sale and possession of alcohol more than two decades ago.

“Given 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,” the state told the Supreme Court.

Jouppi was convicted of alcohol importation, a misdemeanor. State police executed a search warrant on his plane in Fairbanks before it was to take off for Beaver.

Jouppi argues that under the 8th Amendment’s bar on excessive fines, courts must consider the “gravity of the specific defendant’s wrongdoing.” In his case, he said, that didn’t happen and his “airplane [was] forfeited for a six-pack.”

The Supreme Court has had a number of opportunities in recent years to consider questions about what constitutes an excessive fine but has resolved those appeals on narrower grounds.

In late June, a unanimous court allowed a Michigan family to continue fighting a county’s decision to sell its home for $76,008 at public auction even though the property was assessed at more than $194,000. But that decision skirted the broader constitutional questions the case had raised about excessive fines.

Critics, including the libertarian Cato Institute, hope the court will use the case to limit what it has described as abuses of forfeiture laws.

“Billions of dollars have been generated for the government through civil and criminal forfeitures,” the group told the Supreme Court in a brief last year. “And because it is expensive and time-consuming for defendants to challenge forfeitures in court, successfully asserting Eighth Amendment rights is difficult.”

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The post Supreme Court to hear from Alaskan bush pilot whose plane was confiscated

Por Chelsea Bailey, CNN

Cuando Patrick Clancy salió de su casa en Duxbury, Massachusetts, el 24 de enero de 2023, no tenía forma de saber que un rápido mandado para recoger comida para llevar y un medicamento para su hija cambiaría su vida para siempre.

Cuando regresó a la casa de estilo colonial en Summer Street que compartía con su esposa, Lindsay, y sus tres hijos, encontró la vivienda inusualmente silenciosa, según contaría más tarde a la Policía.

Mientras buscaba a su familia, Patrick intentó entrar a su dormitorio, pero la puerta estaba cerrada con llave, diría después. Cuando por fin logró entrar, vio sangre en la habitación y la ventana del segundo piso abierta.

Salió corriendo y encontró a Lindsay tendida en el suelo, debajo de la ventana. Tenía lesiones en las muñecas y el cuello.

Desesperado, llamó al 911.

“¿Qué hiciste?”, le preguntó Patrick a su esposa, según relataría posteriormente un fiscal adjunto del condado de Plymouth al describir la llamada grabada.

Lindsay le respondió que había intentado suicidarse.

“¿Dónde están los niños?”, preguntó Patrick.

“En el sótano”, respondió ella.

Momentos después, Patrick Clancy “podía escucharse gritando de agonía y conmoción mientras encontraba a sus hijos”, dijo la fiscal Jennifer Sprague.

Los agentes encontraron a Cora, de 5 años; Dawson, de 3, y Callan, de 8 meses, inconscientes. Era evidente que los tres habían sido estrangulados, testificaron posteriormente los agentes en declaraciones juradas.

Los niños fueron trasladados a hospitales de la zona, donde finalmente todos fueron declarados muertos.

Lindsay Clancy, quien quedó paralizada por las lesiones sufridas en su intento de suicidio, fue acusada de tres cargos de asesinato y estrangulamiento por la muerte de sus hijos.

Su juicio comenzará el lunes.

Clancy, una exenfermera de trabajo de parto y parto en un hospital de Boston reconocido a nivel nacional, se declaró no culpable. Permanece recluida en el hospital público Tewksbury, en Massachusetts.

Aunque sí mató a sus hijos, no debería ser declarada penalmente responsable de asesinato, ha dicho su abogado, Kevin Reddington, en audiencias judiciales incluso tan recientemente como en junio.

Y aunque existen precedentes para ese tipo de argumento, expertos dijeron a CNN que la defensa de Clancy podría enfrentar una batalla cuesta arriba.

Clancy, de 35 años, había luchado durante mucho tiempo contra la depresión. Incluso ingresó voluntariamente en un hospital psiquiátrico de la zona menos de un mes antes de la muerte de sus hijos, dijo Reddington. Sus médicos iniciaron y suspendieron distintos medicamentos para tratar la depresión, los cuales, según su abogado, agravaron sus síntomas.

“Nuestra sociedad fracasa estrepitosamente al tratar a las mujeres con depresión posparto o incluso con psicosis posparto”, dijo Reddington durante una audiencia de instrucción de cargos en 2023. “Esta es una situación que claramente fue producto de una enfermedad mental”.

A lo largo de las audiencias previas al juicio, Reddington ha dejado claro que planea argumentar que Clancy no debe ser considerada “penalmente responsable” por la muerte de sus hijos porque sufría un trastorno extremo de salud mental.

Reddington y los fiscales estatales debatieron en junio sobre qué pruebas periciales serían admisibles si decidía presentar esa defensa, conocida comúnmente como una “declaración de inimputabilidad por demencia”.

Los miembros del jurado deberían “escuchar por qué Patrick Clancy y su esposa Lindsay acudieron a consultar a médicos por la depresión, por la vida que ella llevaba, una de un sufrimiento terrible a causa de los medicamentos”, argumentó Reddington durante una audiencia en junio.

Los fiscales rechazaron ese planteamiento y señalaron que podrían presentar a sus propios expertos

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration is reviving an effort that will likely make it tougher for many immigrants to obtain green cards if they use or are deemed likely to need public benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid or housing vouchers, in its latest attempt to curb legal immigration.

What’s more, it could also have a “chilling effect” on hundreds of thousands of immigrant families, prompting them to disenroll from or not to apply for safety net programs that they – and particularly their US citizen children – are eligible to receive for fear of hurting their chances to be approved.

The final rule, published Monday, allows immigration officers to take into account a wider array of public assistance programs when determining whether green card applicants will likely become “public charges,” which is one factor in the evaluation. It rescinds a 2022 Biden-era rule that excluded non-cash benefits from consideration.

“Under @POTUS Trump, DHS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves,” the Department of Homeland Security posted to X on Thursday. “We are reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources, and ending policies that encouraged dependency on hard-working American taxpayers.”

About 588,000 applicants are subject to public charge reviews annually, on average, according to DHS. Historically, immigration officers only considered cash assistance, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income from Social Security, when reviewing applications.

The new rule is more expansive than a similar one that President Donald Trump’s first administration put into effect in early 2020. The Biden administration revoked the earlier rule – which immigration advocates likened to a “wealth test” since it largely affected lower-income applicants – the next year.

The rule focuses on people who already have legal status in the US. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for public benefits.

The revived effort does not specify which safety net programs should be considered, saying only that DHS “will consider the receipt of any means tested public benefits,” according to the rule.

That could potentially include a wider array of income-based assistance, such as childcare subsidies, Head Start and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), as well as certain tax breaks, such as the child tax credit, said Maddie Geschu, director of policy and advocacy at the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition.

Also, the new rule allows immigration officers to consider government benefits applied for on behalf of family members, including children who are citizens, Geschu told CNN.

DHS acknowledges in the rule that individuals may choose not to enroll their citizen children in these programs to “avoid negative consequences.” When assessing immigrants’ financial situations, officers may take into account whether members of applicants’ households are receiving public benefits due to the applicants’ low income.

Immigration advocates quickly decried the new rule, which appeared in the Federal Register on Thursday and takes effect September 18. They blasted DHS for ignoring the multitude of comm