A jury in Manhattan found Marine veteran Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide on Monday for putting a mentally ill homeless man, Jordan Neely, into a choke hold on a subway train, subduing him after Neely began threatening passengers.
The twelve jurors deliberated for several days beginning on Tuesday after the four-week trial featured dozens of witnesses on the F train, where Penny, 26, choked out Neely, 30, in May 2023.
Penny faced charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Prosecutors moved to dismiss the former, more severe charge on Friday afternoon after jurors said twice they couldn’t come to a unanimous agreement on the manslaughter count. Penny pleaded not guilty.
After receiving the first note, the judge told jurors to continue deliberating until they reached a consensus, rejecting the defense’s request for a mistrial. The judge approved the prosecution’s request to drop the top charge after the second note. Monday marked the fourth day of deliberations.
Once the manslaughter charge was taken off the table, Penny faced a maximum of four years in prison if convicted of criminally negligent homicide.
A video of the incident went viral last year and sparked a fierce debate about crime and policing because of Neely’s status as a troubled, homeless man with drug problems and a lengthy criminal rap sheet.
Before his death, Neely did time in Rikers Island for assaulting an elderly woman and had been accused of angrily threatening subway passengers prior to the confrontation with Penny. Over the course of his life, Neely racked up more than 40 arrests and had multiple hospitalizations for mental health issues.
The incident prompted commentaries about race and class in America, as Penny is a white man from Long Island and Neely a black man who suffered from mental illness and personal tragedy. Conservatives passionately leaped to Penny’s defense and argued that mentally ill people with criminal records should not be able to harass people in subway cars. On the other side, liberals painted Neely as the victim of racism in America and broken institutions in the criminal justice system.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office prosecuted the case against Penny and attempted to make Penny’s race a factor during the trial. Normally soft on crime, Bragg is known for prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump on elevated business records charges based on a novel legal theory that enabled him to bypass the statute of limitations.
The prosecution accused Penny of criminal recklessness for holding Neely down for about six minutes, arguing that Penny knew the choke hold could be fatal. The prosecution also had to demonstrate that Penny’s choke hold was the cause of Neely’s death, a contention the defense disputed.
Prosecutors repeatedly played the viral footage of Penny’s holding down Neely, and they displayed to the jury another video where witnesses could be heard urging Penny to let Neely go. Several witnesses testified about Neely’s threatening outburst inside the subway train car that triggered Penny to step in before Neely could hurt bystanders.
New York City medical examiner Dr. Cynthia Harris defended her assessment that asphyxiation from being choked out caused Neely’s death. In contrast, the defense’s medical witness, forensic pathologist Dr. Satish Chundru, asserted that Neely’s death resulted from the struggle with Penny combined with Neely’s sickle cell trait, schizophrenia, and medical marijuana consumption.
As the jury deliberated last week, Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, sued Penny on Wednesday for negligently assaulting and battering his deceased son. Penny’s lawyer called the lawsuit a distraction as the jury mulled over the fate of the Marine veteran.
“The timing is unfortunate as Danny is awaiting a verdict from the jury where the potential consequences are far greater than any civil suit could threaten,” said defense attorney Steven Raiser on Thursday, adding that his client had not been served the civil complaint yet. “We will not be distracted by this attempt to attack Danny while he is under such tremendous stress.”