In the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness, whose last moments on a New York City subway train were caught on bystander video that sparked weeks of protests and garnered national attention, Daniel Penny was cleared on Monday of criminally negligent homicide.
The verdict was made on the fifth day of the trial after the judge dismissed the more serious allegation of manslaughter due to the jury’s stalemate on Friday. Penny might have been imprisoned for up to four years.
Some courtroom spectators cheered when the jury foreperson read the not guilty decision. Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, was led out as others started to sob and yell noisily.
This is America. One individual said, “That is the sound of Black pain,” in response to the response outside the Lower Manhattan courtroom.
From outside, cries of “no justice, no peace” could be heard.
In several instances, the case caused racial and political divisions among residents in New York and beyond. Neely was Black. Penny is white. On the day he met Neely, who had been yelling and acting strangely when he got on a subway train in Manhattan on May 1, 2023, some people saw Penny as heartless and his behavior as illegal. Others argue that Penny’s efforts to safeguard other passengers were altruistic.
Alvin Bragg, the district attorney for Manhattan, stated that he supported the jury’s decision. After deliberating on the manslaughter charge for approximately four days, the jury spent around an hour deliberating on the criminally negligent homicide accusation.
The reasons this case was presented to a jury of Mr. Penny’s peers were highlighted by their extensive deliberation and the whole of the facts and evidence, Bragg said in a statement.
The anonymous jury, made up of seven women and five men, were told before they began deliberating that they had to come to a unanimous decision on the top charge of manslaughter in the second degree before moving on to consider criminally negligent homicide. However, after jurors twice sent notes that they were unable to come to a consensus, Judge Maxwell Wiley modified that order on Friday.
The jury were also directed by the judge to determine if Penny’s activities resulted in Neely’s death and, if so, whether his acts were irresponsible and unwarranted.
Before he encountered Penny, Neely,a former Michael Jackson impersonator, ranted about being hungry and thirsty and said that he wanted to return to jail and didn t care if he lived or died, witnesses testified. According to authorities, Penny, a 26-year-old Long Island resident and former Marine, choked Neely for about six minutes.
According to a New York City medical examiner, Neely’s death was caused by compression on his neck during the chokehold.
Christopher Neely, Neely’s uncle, said he was surprised to hear the result since he had assumed the jury would find him guilty of the lesser crime at the very least.
At the very least, charge him, as Danny Penny should have received some sort of punishment for the incident. Neely remarked, “I feel like the jury gave up on us, and they gave him no penalty.”
Donte Mills, a lawyer representing Neely’s family, said at a news conference that he was disheartened by the verdict Monday, as supporters held up a picture of Neely dressed as Jackson. Mills asked that Neely’s death have meaning, and urged that others, instead of becoming physical with someone who may be hungry, offer them food.
He had a muffin in his pocket, Mills said of what police later discovered in Neely’s jacket. Jordan just wanted someone to acknowledge him on the train, but instead, he was choked to death.
Lawyers for Penny could not immediately be reached for comment about the verdict, but had earlier expressed concern Monday to the judge that the jury could be influenced by the demonstrators’ chanting coming from outside the courthouse.
During the trial, Penny s attorneys told jurors that he stepped in because he believed Neely might attack other passengers and he intended only to restrain him until police arrived, which Penny also told police. They also argued that Neely was not killed by the chokehold and that it was impossible to measure how much pressure Penny had applied.
A forensic pathologist hired by the defense testified that Neely died from a combination of his schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana, sickle cell trait and the struggle from being in Penny s restraint. But the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Neely, Dr. Cynthia Harris,told jurorsit was her medical opinion that there are no alternative reasonable explanations for his death and that those proposed by the defense were so improbable that it stands shoulder to shoulder with impossibility.
During cross-examination, one of Penny s attorneys, Steven Raiser sought to cast doubt on Harris testimony about how she and her colleagues had come to a unanimous decision as to Neely s cause of death. Raiser suggested that they had failed to consider all the facts before making that determination.
He revisited that claim in his closing argument last week.
I submit to you there was a rush to judgment, based on something other than medical science, he told jurors.
The case also spurred debates about safety within the city s subway system and failures in addressing homelessness and mental illness, both of which Neely had struggled with.Jumaane Williams, a Black Democrat who is New York City s public advocate, was among those who questioned why police let Penny go after questioning him at a precinct hours after Neely s killing. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also a Democrat,saidNeely had been murdered. ProminentRepublicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisand Matt Gaetz praised Penny andpromoteda fundraiser for his legal fund, which has raised more than $3 million. His defense team includes Thomas Kenniff, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Manhattan District Attorney in 2021.
Vice President-elect JD Vancesaid on Xin response to the verdict that justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.
Prosecutors did not dispute that Neely s actions on the train scared many of the passengers or that he was on synthetic cannabinoids, which were found in his system. In her opening statement, Dafna Yoran, an assistant prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney s Office, said that Neely had demanded to be seen and that despite his not having touched anyone and not having displayed a weapon or threatened to use one, many people in the subway car were frightened of what he might do.
She has said Penny s initial intent was even laudable, but that he was reckless when he continued to choke Neely even after he posed no threat, including after the train doors had opened at the next station and passengers could exit. For some of that time, she said and video showed, two other men helped restrain Neely. One of those men testified that he believed Penny had held the chokehold for too long. At times, Yoran said, he even ignored the pleas of bystanders to let Neely go. In her closing argument, Yoran said that no one had to die and that Penny was not justified in his use of physical deadly force.
You obviously cannot kill someone because they are crazy and ranting and looking menacing, Yoran told jurors in her closing argument. No matter what it is that they are saying.
She also said that Penny could have easily restrained Neely without choking him to death.
In his closing argument, Raiser prompted jurors to imagine that they were on the train the day Neely boarded filled with rage and not afraid of any consequences.
With you sitting much as you are now in this tightly confined space, looking up at Mr. Neely, he said. You have very little room to move and nowhere to run.
Danny, as the defense attorneys referred to Penny throughout the trial, put his life on the line and stepped up in the absence of police, Raiser said.
But Yoran challenged the portrayal of Penny as a self-sacrificing and benevolent subway rider. In her opening statement she said that Penny failed to acknowledge Neely s humanity. She continued that thread in her closing argument, playing video of Penny twice referring to Neely as a crackhead in an interview with police and telling jurorsthat he never asked about Neely s condition.
There is something else that is glaringly missing from his statement. Any regret. Any remorse. Any self reflection, she said. She added: He never expresses any sorrow about the man s death.
During deliberations, jurors asked to rewatch bystander videos of Penny restraining Neely, responding officers body camera videos and video of Penny s subsequent interview with two police detectives at a precinct. They also asked to rehear the medical examiner s testimony about issuing a death certificate before Neely s full toxicology reports were completed. They also asked for the judge to read back the definitions of recklessness and criminal negligence and to have the definitions in writing.
Penny chose not to testify. During the trial, jurors heard from more than 40 witnesses subway passengers who witnessed Penny restrain Neely, police officers who responded to the scene, a Marine Corps instructorwho taught Penny various chokeholds, the two pathologists, a psychiatric expert andsix character witnesses, who included two Marines, Penny s mother and one of his sisters.
On Wednesday, Neely s father sued Penny accusing him of negligent contact, assault and battery that caused Neely s death. The civil suit was filed in New York state s Supreme Court, a trial-level court in New York state.
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