Verdict reached in Daniel Penny's manslaughter trial

(NewsNation) — The justice successful the Daniel Penny trial dismissed the manslaughter complaint against the erstwhile Marine connected Friday afternoon.

The justice accepted the question to disregard the archetypal number against Penny earlier sending the assemblage location for the weekend. They are scheduled to instrumentality Monday greeting to deliberate connected the 2nd count.

"What I'm gonna bash is this, manslaughter successful 2nd grade is dismissed, you are present escaped to see number 2. Whether that makes immoderate difference, I person nary idea, but I nonstop you to absorption deliberations connected number 2. Render a verdict connected that one," helium said.

Penny has pleaded not blameworthy to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges in the decease of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old experiencing homelessness. Penny placed Neely successful a chokehold for astir six minutes aft the antheral threatened to termination different passengers connected the subway.

The jury, made up of 5 men and 7 women, deliberated aft closing arguments successful the proceedings began Monday. Defense attorneys representing Penny petitioned a justice past week to person the charges against their lawsuit dismissed, but the justice ruled that the lawsuit would determination to closing arguments.  

The defence rested earlier Friday after electing not to person Penny testify in his ain defense.

Deliberations began aft the seven-week proceedings that included 40 witnesses. Jury members besides watched hours of video during the proceedings and listened to recordings of 911 calls that were placed pursuing the incident.

During their deliberations, the assemblage sent a bid of notes to the judge, requesting cardinal pieces of evidence, including compartment telephone video footage of Penny keeping the chokehold connected Neely. The assemblage besides requested that the justice work definitions of "recklessness" and "negligence", which spoke to the contented of Penny's justification for his actions.

Jordan Neely’s origin of decease is disputed

Central to the lawsuit was whether the clasp that Penny enactment connected Neely led to the man’s death.

The aesculapian examiner, cardinal to the prosecution, said the crushed for Neely’s decease was the chokehold, but the defense’s experts said this was not the case. He said it was a operation of 4 factors: restraint and struggle, sickle compartment crisis, a synthetic cause successful his strategy called K-2 and schizophrenia.

Penny told officers successful an interrogation country that Neely told passengers connected the subway, “I’m gonna termination everybody. I’m gonna spell to situation forever. I don’t care. I’m gonna bash this.”

New York constabulary officers respond to the country wherever a combat was reported connected a subway train, Monday, May 1, 2023, successful New York. A antheral suffering an evident intelligence wellness occurrence aboard a New York City subway died connected Monday aft being placed successful a headlock by a chap rider, according to constabulary officials and video of the encounter. Jordan Neely, 30, was shouting and pacing aboard an F bid successful Manhattan witnesses and constabulary said, erstwhile helium was taken to the level by different passenger. (Paul Martinka via AP)

The defense’s objective pathologist, Dr. Satish Chundru, testified that Neely’s injuries sustained successful the 2023 incident, on with video changeable by passengers, did not bespeak that Neely died from the chokehold applied by Penny. 

Chundru, citing aesculapian records, testified that the determination and grade of the bruising Neely sustained, on with different factors, led him to reason that the chokehold was not fatal. In summation to the bruising connected Neely’s neck, Chundru testified that determination was a tiny magnitude of petechiae — tiny reddish spots caused by subsurface bleeding — connected his eyelids.

Chundru concluded that Neely died from “the combined effects” of synthetic marijuana, schizophrenia, his conflict and restraint and a humor information that tin pb to fatal complications during exertion.

Prosecutors maintained that Penny's actions are straight connected to Neely's death.

"I’m definite that you had perfectly nary question successful your caput astir what caused Jordan Neely's death. It’s excessively obvious," Yoran said during her closing argument.

"This is simply a wide lawsuit of decease by chokehold."

Daniel Penny encounters Jordan Neely

Jurors learned during the proceedings that Neely was begging for wealth connected May 1, 2023, but that helium began to outcry to passengers that helium was consenting to dice oregon spell to jail.

Daniel Penny, accused of choking a distressed Black subway rider to death, arrives for opening statements successful New York, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024.(AP Photo/Kena Betancur)

Testimony included that Neely, who sometimes entertained passengers arsenic an Elvis impersonator aboard the subway, began acting erratically and began making threats to passengers, witnesses said. Penny has said Neely lurched toward a pistillate with a tiny kid and said, “I volition kill.”

Penny enactment his limb astir Neely’s neck, took him to the floor, and held Neely there, with Penny’s legs astir him, for adjacent to six minutes, bystander videos show. Neely had stopped moving astatine astir the past minute, witnesses said.

Penny’s defence attorneys asked assemblage members to enactment themselves successful the shoes of those aboard the train, portion prosecutors countered that Penny acted excessively aggressively and was forceful and reckless successful responding to Penny. Defense lawyer Steven Raiser told jurors during his closing statement that Neely was filled with rage erstwhile helium entered the bid and was not acrophobic of immoderate consequences.

However, prosecutors argued that contempt Neely’s actions, Penny went excessively far.

“You evidently cannot termination idiosyncratic due to the fact that they are brainsick and ranting and looking menacing, nary substance what it is that they are saying,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran told jurors during her closing argument, according to The Associated Press.

Raiser told jurors this week that his lawsuit could not merchandise Neely from the clasp without putting others successful danger. He besides said that Penny ne'er applied capable unit to Neely to origin his death.

Prosecutors disagreed, citing Penny’s subject experience.

“He was trained successful this,” Yoran said during her closing argument, referring to the chokehold, according to The New York Times, “and yet helium continued with the foreseeable and tragic results.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting to this article.