Deliberations in the case against Daniel Penny began Tuesday after prosecutors asked a Manhattan jury to determine he killed Jordan Neely “recklessly and needlessly.”
State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley instructed panelists on how to deliberate the case for around an hour before handing it off to them at around 1:15 p.m.
In closing, Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran reiterated what she told jurors at the beginning of the more than monthlong trial — that Penny’s initial good intentions aboard an uptown F train on May 1, 2023, didn’t shield him from accountability for ending Neely’s life.
“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,” Yoran said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“The defendant was given all the signs that he needed to stop. He ignored them and kept going until a man died. He must be held accountable for that.”
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Penny, 26, a former Marine from Suffolk County, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted on the top count and no minimum.
To find Penny guilty of manslaughter, jurors must determine he caused Neely’s death and did so recklessly and unjustifiably.
To convict him of criminally negligent manslaughter, they must find he caused Neely’s death with criminal negligence that was not justified.
Jurors heard from multiple passengers who witnessed the incident. Many described feeling terrified after Neely boarded the F train they were riding on a Monday afternoon at Second Ave. and started screaming when the doors closed about wanting something to eat and not caring about whether he died or went to jail.
Nobody accused Neely of touching them or directing threats at anyone specific when Penny took him down from behind in a chokehold that began while the train was in motion and lasted for nearly six minutes when it reached the next stop, Broadway-Lafayette, and was stalled by conductors until authorities arrived on the scene and failed to revive an unconscious Neely.
The incident was largely captured in cell phone footage played throughout the trial. Neely was not armed and had nothing in his pockets but a muffin.
They also heard from passengers who said Neely’s outburst resembled the behavior of other people they’d witnessed on the trains appearing to suffer from mental illness, and from witnesses who were present when Penny continued to subdue Neely. One man who helped Penny said he advised him to let go of his grip on Neely’s neck, to no avail.
“As you know, you’re not here to decide whether you would want to ride on the train with Daniel Penny or whether you would want to ride on the train with Jordan Neely,” Yoran said Tuesday.
“The only thing you need to determine here is whether or not the evidence at this trial has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant killed Jordan Neely recklessly and needlessly.”
In his closing argument on Monday, Penny’s lawyer, Steven Raiser, asked jurors not to find his client responsible for what resulted when he tried to do the right thing.
“It was actually over seven minutes for the police to arrive to help after the first 911 call. Without even arriving with a simple rescue breath mask. Not a single one among them. And a total of 20 minutes for EMS to arrive. But what did that broken system do for Jordan Neely’s chances of surviving this medical occurrence?” Raiser said.
“The government wasn’t there. The police were not there, when the people on that train needed help. Danny was. And then when he was the one that needed help, no help arrived. Not for him, and certainly not for Mr. Neely. And the government has the nerve to blame Danny for acting … and then blame Danny for holding on because the police were not there.”
In addition to arguing that their client acted justifiably, Penny’s defense at trial aggressively challenged the unanimous determination of staffers at the city medical examiner’s office that Neely died as a result of the chokehold, proposing Neely’s history of drug use and mental health issues could have been contributors. Prosecutors called Penny’s former trainer in the Marines, who said he incorrectly applied the chokehold mechanism he’d been taught.
“In the beginning, the chokehold may not have been deadly physical force, as the minutes ticked by, it clearly became deadly physical force,” Yoran said in her summation Monday. “If he had let go after a few seconds, it would not have been.”
Juan Alberto Vazquez
Penny, who served for four years, was studying architecture and working as a barback in Brooklyn at the time of the incident and was on the train that day headed to the gym. Jurors have heard he grew up in a tight-knit family and community, getting good grades in high school, where he played upright bass with the school orchestra and was on the lacrosse team.
Neely was homeless and dealing with drug addiction, mental illness, and multiple brushes with the law in the years before his death; his family says he was derailed by his mother’s murder when he was 14. When he was stable, he became a familiar face to many New Yorkers from his street performances emulating Michael Jackson.
The incident garnered national attention after footage of the chokehold went viral in the aftermath. Penny became a right-wing cause célèbre, raking in millions of dollars in donations toward his legal defense.
The case has provoked debate about mental illness, public safety, and vigilantism. At a time when many of the city’s subway riders were on edge following a spate of particularly heinous acts of violence on the trains, many who support Penny have said he acted commendably.
Those who called for his arrest and now his conviction have pointed out that Neely didn’t hurt anyone and say he was tremendously vulnerable and in need of help, not harm.
