The Manhattan jury weighing the criminal charges against Daniel Penny in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely started deliberations in the lightning-rod case Tuesday.
The 12 jurors — seven women and five men — went off to huddle around 1:15 p.m. and are tasked with deciding whether to convict Penny of killing Neely, a troubled homeless man, on a crowded F train subway train in May 2023.
Over four weeks of testimony, the panel heard from more than 40 witnesses, including straphangers who witnessed Neely’s outburst on the crowded F train that day and Penny — a Marine veteran from Long Island — putting him in a chokehold and its aftermath.
Penny, 26, nodded in the direction of the jurors as they were led away in Manhattan Supreme Court to deliberate.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Here’s what’s at stake:
What charges is Daniel Penny facing?
Penny is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
- Manslaughter in the second degree is when a person “recklessly” causes the death of another person with conduct that “creates or contributes to a substantial and unjustifiable risk” that their death will occur. The charge, a class C felony, also states that a person is “aware of and consciously disregards” the risk of their actions.
- Criminally negligent homicide, a class E felony, is when a person acts with “criminal negligence” by failing to perceive the risk of their actions but going through with it anyway.
How can Daniel Penny be found guilty?
If Penny is found guilty of manslaughter, the jury will have found that he “recklessly” caused the death of Neely.
If the jury finds Penny not guilty of manslaughter, it will then consider whether he’s guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
Penny cannot be convicted on both counts.
How long could Daniel Penny spend in prison if he’s found guilty?
Penny faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter in the second degree.
If the jury finds Penny not guilty of manslaughter but convicts him of criminally negligent homicide, he faces up to four years behind bars.
There’s no minimum on either charge, meaning that he could also be sentenced to probation.
How can Daniel Penny be found not guilty?
Penny could duck both charges if the jury votes that he is not guilty of manslaughter and if it finds that his actions were “justified.”
The jury will have to decide that if Penny used deadly physical force, it was necessary for him to do so to defend himself and others on the subway, and whether a “reasonable person” in Penny’s shoes would have had the same reaction.
It could also vote to acquit if it finds that prosecutors have not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Penny’s chokehold is what caused Neely’s death.
What are prosecutors claiming?
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office claims Penny was “criminally reckless” and went “way too far” while holding Neely, 30, down for nearly six minutes — despite knowing his actions could be fatal — because he didn’t “recognize [Neely’s] humanity.”
“What’s so tragic about this case is that even though the defendant started out trying to do the right thing, as the chokehold progressed, the defendant knew that Jordan Neely was in great distress and dying, and he needlessly continued,” prosecutor Dafna Yoran told jurors in her closing statement Tuesday.
“The defendant was given all the signs that he needed to stop,” she added. “He ignored them and kept going until a man died. He must be held accountable for that.”
What is Daniel Penny’s defense?
Penny’s attorneys have argued that Penny’s actions were “fully justified” to protect people on the subway from Neely, who witnesses said was menacing passengers and making threats before Penny took him down.
“Who do you want on the next train ride with you?” his lawyer Steven Raiser said in his closing statement.
“The guy with the earbuds minding his own business who you know would be there for you if something happened? Or perhaps you just hope that someone like Jordan Neely does not enter that train when you are all alone, all alone in a crowd of others frozen with fear?” the attorney added.
What evidence was presented at trial?
Two videos shot by witnesses — one by a high school student and another from a freelance journalist — are the only direct views of the chokehold at the heart of the case.
Jurors were shown the infamous six-minute video shot by journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez, of Penny holding Neely in a chokehold for several minutes — including after Neely appears to stop moving on his own. The shocking video has been played more than a dozen times inside the courtroom.
A brief, never-before-seen video shot by a nervous Ivette Rosario also shows Penny holding Neely in a chokehold — while bystanders plead with him to “let him go.”
Rosario testified that after Neely stormed onto the uptown F train at the Second Avenue stop, he shouted that he was homeless, hungry and “didn’t care about going back to jail.”
Other straphangers said they had never seen an outburst like Neely’s on the subway before.
Alethea Gittings testified she was “scared s–tless” hearing Neely’s rants and later thanked Penny for stepping in.
Lori Sitro, who was taking her 5-year-old son to a doctor’s appointment on the subway, testified that she was so scared of a “belligerent and unhinged” Neely that she barricaded her son behind his stroller.
“I’ve taken the subway for 30 years and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen a lot of unstable people. This felt different to me,” Sitro said.
Testimony at trial has also included dueling medical opinions from the city’s medical examiner and Penny’s medical expert.
Dr. Cynthia Harris, who performed Neely’s autopsy, stood by her ruling that Neely’s death was caused by asphyxiation as a result of the former Marine’s chokehold.
Harris testified that she and the other doctors at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, including the chief, believed that Neely’s death was caused by “asphyxia,” consistent with being choked, after seeing a journalist’s video of the homeless man “dying” with Penny’s arms wrapped around his neck.
Meanwhile, Dr. Satish Chundru, a forensic pathologist based in Texas, claimed that Neely’s autopsy results didn’t show signs typical of known chokehold deaths — but said that Neely died from “the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana.”
