NEW YORK – Jurors in the Daniel Penny strangulation trial returned for just an hour Friday for a fourth day of deliberations, reaching agreement on the top charge, manslaughter, as the fate of the 26-year-old case hangs in the balance. He told the court that he could not do so. – A former Marine Corps veteran and architecture student has been charged with murdering a mentally ill homeless man who had threatened to kill others on a Manhattan subway car.
Around 11 a.m., jurors sent a memo to the court saying, “We, the jury, seek the judge's direction.” [Maxwell] Wiley. At this time, there has not been a unanimous vote on the first court, the second-degree manslaughter charge. ”
The indictment asks prosecutors to prove that Penny acted recklessly when he grabbed Jordan Neely in a chokehold. According to trial testimony, Neely broke onto a train while high on drugs and threatened to kill passengers during a psychotic episode.
Daniel Penny trial: Jurors asked to revisit key evidence during deliberations
Daniel Penny appears in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, December 5, 2024, in New York City. (Adam Gray, Fox News Digital)
Despite protests from prosecutors, Wiley told attorneys on both sides, “I don't think we can move forward to count two in this case unless the defendant is found not guilty on count one.'' “At the very least, we need to ask the jury to render a verdict in Section 1.”
Count 2 is a minor charge of negligent homicide, which carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison.
He then provided new instructions and gave lawyers time to consider them.
Neely, a 30-year-old man with schizophrenia, told Strappanger that “someone is going to die today” and that he doesn't care about going to prison for the rest of his life. Penny grabbed him from behind in a chokehold to stop the explosion.
Neely later died. He had an active arrest warrant at the time. He was high on K2, a synthetic marijuana drug that acts as a stimulant, and had a long criminal history, including assaulting a 67-year-old woman at another subway station in 2021.
Manhattan DA downplays potential punishment for Daniel Penny as 'inappropriate and misleading': defense
Jordan Neely is pictured outside the Regal Cinemas on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street in New York's Times Square in 2009 before going to see the Michael Jackson movie “This Is It.” (Andrew Sabrich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Penny remained at the scene and spoke with responding officers. He also agreed to speak with NYPD detectives at the Fifth Precinct building.
“He was talking gibberish…but they're pushing people out in front of trains and stuff,” he told investigators. In the year before Penny met Neely, there were more than 20 subway crashes.
Just three days ago, a man was stabbed with an ice pick on a strap on the J train. Report at the time. This was about a month after the PBS reporter was interviewed. sucker punch Take train number 4. A week earlier, there had been a shoving incident in which the victim collided with the side of a moving R train. and survived.
In that atmosphere of fear, witnesses said they were frightened by Neely, who kept shouting death threats.
Screenshot of bystander video showing Jordan Neely being strangled on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez, via Storyful)
A witness, 19-year-old student Yvette Rosario, said Neely yelled, “Someone is going to die that day.”
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Penny could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the more serious charge.
