Delaware
Judge nixes town mandate to bury or cremate fetal remains
DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware judge on Wednesday struck down a small town’s ordinance mandating burial or cremation of fetal remains.
The ruling by Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster came in a lawsuit filed by Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Jennings against the southern Delaware town of Seaford. The town council passed the ordinance in December after Planned Parenthood opened a facility in Seaford in September, its first clinic in southern Delaware since a Rehoboth Beach location closed in 2011.
Laster noted that the case did not involve any federal constitutional rights or any Delaware law regarding abortion, and was not affected by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion. Instead, he wrote, the state’s argument relied on Delaware’s laws regarding disposal of human remains.
“In Delaware’s governmental hierarchy, the state is the senior sovereign. The city is the junior sovereign. Because the ordinance conflicts with Delaware law, it is preempted,” Laster wrote.
Laster noted that state law requires an official record of death before human remains can be cremated or interred. An official record of death can be issued for fetal remains only if they result from a miscarriage and either weigh more than 350 grams (12.5 ounces) or otherwise indicate a gestational stage of 20 weeks or more.
Fetal remains that do not meet that criteria are not considered a “dead body” under Delaware law and must be incinerated as “pathological waste.”
“However one might view aborted remains for ethical, moral, or religious purposes, they do not constitute a dead body under Delaware’s statutory regime,” Laster wrote. “Aborted remains therefore cannot be buried or cremated.”
Despite Laster’s explanation that the case had less to do with abortion than with state laws regarding disposal of human remains, Jennings seized on the ruling to attack what she described as “a wave of extremist, draconian laws” unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jennings also described Seaford’s ordinance as “a cruel and frankly hateful policy,” having previously labeled it “anti-choice.”
The ordinance made clear that women have the right under state and federal law to get an abortion, while also noting that courts have held that the disposal of fetal remains can be regulated.
Jennings argued that the ordinance would pose a hardship on women by forcing them to pay for burial or cremation, even though a woman could opt not to select either option. In that instance, the abortion facility would be left to decide, at its expense, how and where to dispose of the remains.
“This ordinance is part of a national wave of anti-abortion policies funded by extremists who would have our country dragged fifty years into the past,” Jennings said when the lawsuit was filed in January.
Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. John Carney on Wednesday signed a bill further broadening access to abortions in Delaware. The bill allows physician assistants, certified nurse practitioners and nurse midwifes to perform abortions before viability. It also includes various legal protections for abortion providers and patients, including out-of-state residents receiving abortions in Delaware. Those provisions include protections from civil actions in other states relating to the termination of a pregnancy, and protecting individuals from extradition to other states for criminal charges related to terminating a pregnancy.
Massachusetts
Ex-USC coach, couple avoid prison time in college scandal
BOSTON (AP) — A former assistant soccer coach at the University of Southern California who created fake athletic profiles for the children of wealthy parents in the sprawling college admissions bribery scheme avoided prison time Tuesday after helping convict others in the case.
Laura Janke, who helped the mastermind of the scheme get students into elite schools as bogus athletics recruits, was sentenced to time served and 50 hours of community service. Federal prosecutors credited her “extensive and valuable” cooperation in the government’s investigation and prosecution in not seeking time behind bars despite her “egregious” conduct.
Stephen Huggard, an attorney for Janke, said his client is a “very good person who is very sorry to have been involved in this and very glad to have this behind her.”
Also on Tuesday, a California couple who admitted to paying $600,000 to get their daughters into USC and the University of California, Los Angeles, were sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to complete 250 service hours. Bruce Isackson must pay a $7,500 fine and Davina Isackson must pay a $1,000 fine.
The Isacksons of Hillsborough, California, also cooperated with the government in the so-called “Operation Varsity Blues” case. Prosecutors didn’t ask for prison time for them either, telling the judge that their “acceptance of responsibility for their conduct was unstinting, their remorse sincere.”
The couple paid the admissions consultant at the center of the scheme — Rick Signer — to have their older daughter designated as a bogus soccer recruit and their younger daughter designated as a crew recruit. They also paid Singer to rig their younger daughter’s ACT score by having a fake proctor correct her answers.
The Isacksons were the first among dozens of parents charged in the case to plead guilty. Both Janke and Bruce Isackson testified in trials against two other parents and another former USC coach.
“Davina and I profoundly regret our part in the college admissions case and look forward to making amends by serving our community,” Bruce Isackson said Tuesday in an emailed statement through his lawyer.
Of the 57 people charged in connection with “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation, more than 50 defendants pleaded guilty, including “Full House” actor Lori Loughlin, her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, and “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman.
Three people — two parents and a former University of Southern California water polo coach — were convicted at trial. Another parent was pardoned by former President Donald Trump, and one coach got a deal under which prosecutors agreed to move to dismiss his case if he pays a fine and abides by the agreement’s terms.
One other parent was acquitted earlier this month by jurors on all counts stemming from accusations that he bribed then-Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst to get his daughter into the school. Ernst is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
