Vermont
Man charged with killing mother at sea to remain detained
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The man charged with killing his mother at sea during a 2016 fishing trip off the coast of New England in a plot to inherit millions of dollars will remain detained pending trial, a federal judge in Vermont ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford denied Nathan Carman’s request to be released and ordered him held without bail, saying he is a potential flight risk and danger due to the seriousness of the charges, lack of strong family, employment or community connections “and his involvement with firearms and the ongoing feud with his family” over his late grandfather’s inheritance.
Crawford said the evidence regarding the loss of his mother at sea, and “the acrimonious dispute” with his aunts over the inheritance, as well as his purchase of AR-15 type weapons “are evidence that this is a volatile situation.”
Carman, 28, of Vernon, was charged in May with murder and fraud in the killing of his mother, Linda Carman of Middletown, Connecticut, during a fishing trip in which his boat sank. He was found floating in a raft and rescued eight days after departing from a Rhode Island marina. He pleaded not guilty in his mother’s death.
Prosecutors also have accused Carman of killing his grandfather, John Chakalos, who they say was shot in his home in Windsor, Connecticut, in 2013 as part of a scheme to obtain money and property from his grandfather’s estate. Carman has not been charged in that case and has denied any involvement in his grandfather’s death.
Kentucky
Clinics appeal order that reinstated abortion ban
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s two abortion clinics filed a quick appeal Tuesday aimed at restoring abortion services in the state, a day after an appellate judge reinstated a near-total statewide abortion ban.
The clinics, both in Louisville, asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to vacate the ruling issued Monday evening by a judge on the state’s intermediate Court of Appeals.
That ruling meant most abortions are illegal in the state, for now.
In their motion to the Supreme Court, the clinics said that ruling had “upended 50 years of the status quo” by essentially halting abortion access in Kentucky. As a result, women previously scheduled to receive abortions are now being turned away, the filing said.
“The challenged bans have eliminated access to abortion in Kentucky and they are imposing irreparable harm on plaintiffs and their patients in a variety of ways, including by forcing Kentuckians to remain pregnant, and eventually give birth, against their will,” the motion said.
Both sides had expected the case to ultimately end up before the state’s Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Court of Appeals judge granted an emergency request from Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron to reinstate the two laws banning nearly all abortions in the state. The order was to remain in place while the appeals court appoints a three-judge panel to hear the case. The two laws had been put on hold last month by a lower court judge in Louisville, prompting Cameron’s appeal.
Cameron said in a prepared statement Tuesday that “the laws of the Commonwealth are clear when it comes to the unborn. The Court of Appeals decision yesterday ensures that these important laws remain in effect.”
Kentucky’s trigger law was meant to ban abortions as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June. The Kentucky law contains a narrow exception allowing a physician to perform an abortion if necessary to prevent the death or permanent injury of the pregnant woman.
Kentucky lawmakers also passed a separate six-week ban that the clinics are challenging.
Washington
Census lawsuit tossed based on definition of ‘whereby’
A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a public records lawsuit on the 2020 census based on a Webster’s dictionary definition of one obscure word: “whereby.”
The lawsuit was over an even more obscure concept: how a statistical method was used to fill in details when information was lacking about people residing in dorms, nursing homes, prisons and other group living spaces.
A Republican-leaning redistricting advocacy group had sued the Census Bureau and the Commerce Department, which oversees the statistical agency, in an effort to get records showing by state the number of times the statistical method was used for group quarters. Fair Lines America Foundation had said it had “significant implications for our nation’s redistricting and electoral process” and demanded transparency in how the method was implemented.
In group quarters, the method known as imputation involves using already available information about the facility, such as its maximum capacity, to fill in missing details.
People living in group quarters were particularly difficult to count during the 2020 census because the coronavirus pandemic sent college students fleeing campuses and put nursing homes and prisons in lockdown. In response, the Census Bureau unexpectedly decided to use the statistical technique for group housing, where about 3% of the U.S. population lives. Because of concerns over the group quarters count during the pandemic, the Census Bureau set up a separate program for governments to appeal that count in their jurisdictions.
The census determines how many congressional seats each state gets, as well as the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year.
The Census Bureau had argued that releasing the records to Fair Lines would violate a law protecting census participants’ privacy and confidentiality. Bad actors could reconstruct the larger data set and identify people’s private information if the information was released, the statistical agency argued.
In her order, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson conceded that releasing the aggregated data itself wouldn’t jeopardize participants’ privacy or confidentiality. But the law prohibits “‘any publication whereby the data furnished by any particular establishment or individual under this title can be identified,’” she wrote, quoting from the law.
“The interpretation of this sentence hinges on the word ‘whereby,’” she wrote.
Citing a Webster’s dictionary definition from 1953, a year before the law was enacted, the judge said the meaning of ‘whereby’ led her to believe that publication of the data was prohibited. An attorney for Fair Lines didn’t respond to an email and text seeking comment.
