When I was on a jury in New York. was acquitted Daniel Penny in the murder of Jordan Neely, it gave us no answers. The jury, and we, were faced with the question of how society wants its neurodiverse members to be treated.
Jordan Neely, an agitated homeless black man with crisis schizophrenia, boarded the F train in New York City screaming, “I've had enough!” Some passengers were frightened. Some said Mr. Neely had threatened them. Others denied it.
Daniel Penny, a former Marine from Long Island who was studying architecture, stepped forward and placed Neely in a chokehold, where he held for about six minutes. At the end of this encounter, Neely was dead. The medical examiner said Penny died from continued pressure on her throat.
Penny was indicted and tried. During deadlocked jury deliberations, the manslaughter charge was dismissed and the case against Penny was sent back to the jury on the lesser charge of negligent homicide. jury handed down the verdict Of “not guilty”.
The media reaction when the “not guilty” verdict was announced gave the impression that it had been long rehearsed. The incident has received intensive media coverage since Neely's death. Everyone knew that some sort of verdict would be reached, and the trial was reported as a zero-sum contest with one winner and one loser.
The responses were divided into two categories. The acquittal amounted to a “green light for white people.” vigilance' A voice echoed. Proof of the hero's innocence They protected their neighbors from the forces of disorder.
Both of these takes are wrong.
A verdict of not guilty in a criminal case simply states that the jury felt a reasonable doubt, or, in the words of classical teaching, “could not feel that…” be.moral certainty“of factual question The Penny jury asked whether Penny assumed a risk “of such a nature and extent that failure to recognize it constituted a material departure from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the circumstances.” I couldn't answer that in the affirmative.
This was not a verdict on the “send the police or send the social workers” dialectic that dominates contemporary media debates. In fact, the Penny verdict acknowledged that the argument was insufficient. The jury apparently took into account the fact that either police or social workers could be sent. bothand still face dire “boundary work” on the ground. In everyday life, you will face countless interactions when police and social workers are not present.
It's hard to think of the Penny case without mentioning Walker Evans' haunting collection of subway photos. ”many people are called” — A secret portrait from the subway's unique public solitude zone. New Yorkers have always accepted mental illness into their zone. For years they housed Neely. Neely's chronic wanderings earned him a place in the city.top 50List of destructive mentally ill people.
New Yorkers share a tacit understanding. It's a special code that informs what behavior will be ignored, when to look away, and when to withhold verbal objections when giving space to another car. Understanding these rules is part of what makes you a New Yorker. But is it a crime to not grasp or apply them?
Many are called to be men and women in crisis. It is not up to you if and when you are chosen. Circumstances chose Penny. His jury didn't just focus on Penny's actions at the critical moment. I widened the lens.
It turns out that Penny and Neely were brought together in an encounter that neither man had to deal with. In terms of safety, Penny was no different from the exhausted, poorly trained nurses in the NICU who ingest lethal doses of unlabeled drugs. “”second victim” And when that moment arrived, it asked what we, as reasonable human beings, could expect from each other.
When we react to Penny's rulings by angrily attacking them or self-righteously praising them, we are taking shelter behind Penny's backs. We use him to avoid the fundamental question that Neely's death poses: as a police scholar. david thatcher “We should view disability not as the property of individuals with specific disabilities, but as the property of society that has failed to accommodate them.”
We should talk about it.
James Doyle is a lawyer and author living in Boston.
