Daniel Penny’s lawyers rested their case Friday. Penny is on trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with the May 2023 chokehold death of homeless man Jordan Neely on the New York City subway.
After Thanksgiving, the jury is anticipated to begin deliberations and hear closing statements.
Penny may spend up to 15 years behind bars if found guilty of the more serious charge of manslaughter.
According to authorities, Neely, 30, a Michael Jackson lookalike with a history of mental illness, had been acting strangely but not aggressively. He and Penny were on a F train when Penny flung him to the ground and choked him for six minutes. They claimed that when Penny continued to choke Neely after he was no longer a threat, his conduct were illegal.
The two men’s bystander film, which went viral online, raised awareness of racial relations, public safety in the city’s subway system, and the city’s policies regarding homelessness and mental health. Penny is white. Neely was Black. Neely had a history of drug and mental health issues, and he was under the influence of synthetic cannabinoids the day he was slain.
According to Penny’s lawyers, the former Marine took action to keep himself and other passengers safe. He didn’t plan to murder Neely, they maintained, and he didn’t put enough pressure on him to.
In his testimony on Thursday, defense witness Dr. Satish Chundru, a consultant and forensic pathologist, stated that he did not think Neely had died from a chokehold. According to Chundru, Neely passed away as a result of the confluence of his sickle cell crises, schizophrenia, struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana he was using. He was one of the two expert witnesses for the defense. His mother and sister were among the six character witnesses that Penny’s lawyers also called.
Chundru’s evidence was meant to contradict the conclusions of Dr. Cynthia Harris, the New York City medical examiner who conducted Neely’s autopsy and determined that he had been murdered by Penny’s chokehold. She spent three days testifying as a prosecution witness.
A week ago, Harris informed jurors, “It is my medical opinion that there are no other reasonable explanations for Mr. Neely’s death.”
She also stated in her testimony that the medical examiner’s office came to a unified conclusion on Neely’s cause of death.
Prosecutors called over 30 witnesses during the trial, including several passengers on the train on the day Neely was killed, including Harris, who was present in court on Thursday and Friday during Chundru’s evidence.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran’s cross-examination of Chundru took up a significant portion of Friday’s last day of witness evidence. According to Yoran, there were times when Chundru’s evidence conflicted with the conclusions of other medical experts, such as the American Society of Hematologists, and with his views in other situations.
In order to counter Chundru’s earlier testimony that two witnesses at the scene said Neely was breathing when Penny released him, prosecutors also called New York City Police Officer Stephon Joefield as a rebuttal witness on Friday afternoon.
A police body camera video showed Neely lying on the ground when Joefield arrived at the subway was displayed to the jurors. Neely was breathing, Joefield could be heard saying. Neely was asleep and unresponsive when Joefield arrived, according to his testimony. He claimed that although he had checked Neely’s pulse and found it to be there, neither he nor his partner had verified that Neely was breathing.
Joefield testified that I assumed he was breathing because he had a pulse.
According to prior testimony from Harris, the medical examiner, in cases of asphyxial death, a pulse can be sustained for roughly ten minutes after the brain dies.
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