After jurors couldn’t agree on whether Daniel Penny was guilty of manslaughter, the judge presiding over the trial of a man accused of applying a fatal chokehold to an unruly New York subway passenger dismissed the case’s top charge on Friday at the prosecutors’ request, allowing jurors to consider a lesser count.
Because of Judge Maxwell Wiley’s ruling, jurors will have the opportunity to consider a charge of criminally negligent homicide, which carries a less severe penalty.
Wiley asked jurors to take the lesser count into account.
I am not sure whether that makes a difference. However, he instructed them to concentrate their thoughts on count two before sending them home to consider another matter.
Hours after Manhattan jurors wrote to the judge to express their inability to reach a manslaughter verdict, the judge made his decision. Previously, jurors were told that they could not consider the lesser count until they had rendered a verdict on the top accusation.
Since Tuesday, jurors have been considering whether to find Penny guilty of Jordan Neely’s killing. In May 2023, after Neely got aboard a subway car screaming and begging for money, Penny, a former U.S. Marine, put him in a chokehold for almost six minutes.
Manslaughter provides a maximum sentence of 15 years and requires proof that the perpetrator killed someone else carelessly. Criminally negligent homicide, which includes penalties ranging from probation to up to four years in jail, entails committing significant, blameworthy acts while failing to recognize the danger.
Given that they can request dismissal at trial, Penny’s attorneys argued that the dismissal will incentivize district attorneys to bring more serious accusations before grand juries. Thomas Kenniff, the defense attorney, described it as a major policy issue.
The jury also asked for clarification on how they decide whether someone has a reasonable belief that physical force is required, just before they took a lunch break on Friday.
Their note said, in part, “We would like to better understand the term reasonable person.”
Wiley instructed the jury to determine whether a reasonable person would have reasonably believed that Neely was going to use physical force against Penny or another individual, as well as what a reasonable person would have done in the circumstances.
Since beginning its deliberations, the panel has asked the court for a number of additional things.
At the heart of the trial, they requested to see the police and bystander footage. They asked to read the testimony of a city medical examiner. Additionally, they requested printed copies of the statutes and a rereading of the criminal definitions of carelessness and recklessness in public court.
Neely, 30, was a former subway performer with a traumatic past. When he was a teenager, his mother was killed and put in a bag. As an adult, he experienced homelessness, drug misuse, psychiatric hospitalizations, and criminal convictions, including assaults at subway stations.
The 26-year-old Penny pursued architecture studies. He’s white. Neely was Black.
According to Penny’s attorneys, he was defending himself and other subway users against a tumultuous, mentally ill man who was making frightening gestures and statements. According to the prosecution, Penny reacted very violently to a person he saw as a threat rather than a human being.
Witnesses, law enforcement, pathologists, a Marine Corps instructor who taught Penny chokehold techniques, Penny’s family, friends, and fellow Marines were all presented to the anonymous jury throughout the month-long trial. Penny declined to give a statement.
on addition to the city’s continuous battle to address homelessness and mental health issues on a transport system that millions of New Yorkers utilize on a daily basis, the case became a focal point in the country’s discussion of racial injustice and criminality.
Outside the courthouse, there were occasionally opposing protests, and while notable Democrats attended Neely’s funeral, prominent Republicans hailed Penny as a hero.
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