After jurors declared themselves deadlocked, the judge in the trial of Daniel Penny, the man who is accused of choking Jordan Neely to death on a New York City subway last year, dismissed a manslaughter charge on Friday.
Jurors will only take into account the lesser accusation of criminally negligent homicide, according to the ruling, which was made at the prosecutors’ request. The maximum penalty for it is four years. Prosecutors’ request was not disclosed to jurors. Penny entered a not guilty plea.
On Monday, the five male and seven female jurors will begin deliberating again. On Friday, they wrote the judge two notes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, stating that they were unable to reach a unanimous judgment on the primary allegation of second-degree manslaughter. Judge Maxwell Wiley gave them instructions to continue deliberating after the first note.
Wiley informed the jury prior to the start of the deliberations on Tuesday afternoon that it would not be permitted to consider criminally negligent homicide unless it reached a unanimous verdict on the manslaughter charge. They were also told to determine whether Penny’s actions killed Neely and, if so, whether his actions were careless and unwarranted.
On the afternoon of May 1, 2023, Penny, an architecture student and former Marine, was traveling to the gym after class when he came upon an unpredictable Neely on a metro train.
According to witnesses, Neely, a former Michael Jackson lookalike, flung his jacket on the ground and yelled loudly that he was hungry, thirsty, and didn’t care if he died or was sent back to jail when he boarded the train. According to the prosecution, Penny choked him for six minutes. Bystander footage revealed that it went on after the uptown F train reached its next destination, the Broadway-Lafayette station. Neely, 30, had a history of mental illness and was homeless. He had synthetic marijuana, often known as K2, in his bloodstream when he passed away.
The case turned into a focal point for the city’s long-running discussions about racial justice, safety in the subway system, and the city’s shortcomings in dealing with mental illness and homelessness, two issues Neely had faced.
According to Penny, 26, and his lawyers, he restrained Neely until the police arrived, not intending to hurt him, and he acted to safeguard other passengers.
Thomas Kenniff and Steven Rasier, Penny’s lawyers, have contested the municipal medical examiner’s conclusion that Neely died from compression to his neck as a result of the chokehold.
When the jury failed to agree on the manslaughter charge, Kenniff repeatedly requested that the judge declare a mistrial outside of the jury’s presence on Friday. He also took issue with the charge being dropped.
According to Kenniff, this is effectively pressuring the jury to render a skewed decision.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers had argued over whether jurors should be made to continue their deliberations before the more serious charge was dropped.
Kenniff informed the judge that the jury has been deliberate for around 20 hours over four days in what is, in many respects, a factually straightforward case because the incident was captured on film over the course of minutes. Under these conditions, we fear that the Allen charge will be administered under duress.
When a jury is deadlocked, an Allen charge tells them to keep attempting to reach a unanimous decision.
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office deputy prosecutor Dafna Yoran disagreed. According to her, the message was the first sign of a disagreement among the jurors that morning.
Since the start of the deliberations, the jurors have sent the judge about ten notes. They requested to view the body camera footage of the responding cops, the bystander footage of Penny restraint of Neely, and the video of Penny’s later interview with two police investigators at a precinct. Additionally, they requested that the court read back the criteria of criminal negligence and recklessness, have them in writing, and rehearse a portion of the medical examiner’s evidence.
Wiley stated following the defense team’s initial plea for a mistrial on Friday that the notes “have the tone of an extremely conscientious jury that has been approaching it very systematically.” Therefore, I believe that it is not time to declare a mistrial. However, it is not appropriate to presume that they have only sent this email because things have become challenging for them.
Wiley later stated that he did not want the jurors to disregard their consciences or their best judgment before dropping the manslaughter allegation.
He remarked, “I will once more urge each of you to do everything in your power to reach a just verdict here.”
Following their initial note stating that they were at a standstill, Wiley praised the jurors for their efforts thus far and informed them that it is normal for juries to struggle at first to reach a unanimous decision.
He reminded the jurors, “You’ve been at this for a little over two and a half days,” before instructing them to continue their deliberations. It’s a long time. However, I don’t believe it’s too lengthy considering the case’s factual complexity.
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