Free Republic

A 36-year-old step-grandmother accused of beating and shaking an 11-month-old baby to death will not even spend a year in jail. Shanica Callaghan was sentenced to 364 days in prison by Judge Ushir Pandit-Durant in Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday after striking a plea deal. Her husband Clinton's grandson Jeremiah died on September 6, 2017, with a fractured skull and injuries to his brain, neck, and spinal cord. A medical examiner found the baby died from 'violent, repetitive forces of acceleration and deceleration and significant blunt force trauma being applied to [his] head and body'. Callaghan, who has three young...

Queens District Attorney-elect Melinda Katz announced Tuesday she will go softer on criminal defendants when she takes over as the borough’s chief prosecutor on Jan. 1. Katz said she will make it easier for criminal defendants to have their cases heard by a grand jury within five days of an arrest, without losing their right to plea bargain.

Phyllis Chesler saw part of 'The Death of Klinghoffer' and reports there were shouts of protest from the audience There was such a large police presence and so many police barricades that anyone passing by would think that terrorists were at large. There were no terrorists on Broadway—although terrorists would soon be mounting the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. The police were protecting the right of the Opera House to present the Palestine Liberation Organization and their cause as mythically majestic and eternally just. Here’s what was also extraordinary: “The Suits”—men and women in positions of power, both politically, legally,...