NEW YORK – Manhattan jurors considering the fate of Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny returned to court Monday after a judge dismissed a controversial more serious charge, avoiding a mistrial. , only considered minor charges against him.
On Friday, Judge Maxwell Wiley agreed to prosecutors' request to dismiss the most serious charge, second-degree manslaughter, after jurors were told twice in court that the matter was deadlocked.
They had previously been instructed to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter only if they found Penny not guilty of manslaughter for any reason other than lack of justification.
“The charge of second-degree manslaughter is dismissed,” Wiley told jurors before sending them home Friday. “That means you're free to consider count two. I don't know if that makes any difference.”
Daniel Penny murder charges dropped due to weekend jury recess
Daniel Penny arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, December 5, 2024, in New York City. The jury is in its third day of deliberations in Penny's trial for Jordan Neely, who died on a Manhattan F train in 2023. (Adam Gray, Fox News Digital)
They will return on Monday and only consider the lesser charges.
Defense attorneys have opposed last-minute exchanges of charges, which are a violation of state law and require prosecutors to initially commit charges knowing that they could later lower the charges on the spot if their case doesn't work out. It was argued that there was a risk of reinforcing the precedent of overcharging.
Penny's lawyer told the judge: “There is a risk here of either a strong verdict or a compromise verdict…It's clear that New York State discourages compromise verdicts.” “That would force them to make what we would have filed in terms of lesser criminal negligence.”
Although the judge agreed that the defense had correctly stated the law, he said he would “take a chance” and dismiss the main lawsuit.
Daniel Penny trial: Key evidence jurors were asked to see again during deliberations
Screenshot of bystander video showing Jordan Neely being strangled on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez, via Storyful)
“We are cautiously optimistic that the remaining count will be dismissed by the jury on Monday,” Stephen Reiser, one of Penny's attorneys, told Fox News on Friday. “Now we can finally put this nightmare behind Danny and focus on the civil suit that was filed two days ago with the same charges as the criminal charges.”
On May 1, 2023, Penny, a 26-year-old architecture student at Brooklyn's City Institute of Technology, was riding the F train to the gym after class when she met a 30-year-old schizophrenic and drug addict. Jordan Neely, a homeless man, barged onto the train and began shouting threats at the passengers.
“Now the judge is telling the jury, 'Forget the law, forget what I said,'” a Fox News legal analyst told “Fox & Friends” Monday morning. “His ruling also violates New York procedure law, which prohibits dismissal at this late stage of deliberations unless both parties agree. The defense disagreed.”
Daniel Penny trial: Jurors asked to revisit key evidence during deliberations
Many witnesses testified that they were frightened during the ordeal, but relieved when Penny put Neely in a headlock and forced him to the ground, and Penny and the other passengers restrained him for several minutes.
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 were 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.
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)
Just three days ago, a subway passenger was allegedly stabbed with an ice pick 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.
Jurors spent much of last week deliberating but could not reach a unanimous decision on the top charges.
“Judge Wiley should have declared a mistrial,” Andrew McCarthy, former chief assistant attorney general for the Southern District of New York, said in a Fox News op-ed on Sunday. “To proceed at this point is to try to bulldoze the jury into a conviction. Moreover, we believe it violates the New York State Code of Criminal Procedure.”
A GiveSendGo fundraiser for Neely's defense has raised more than $3 million in donations from supporters across the country, a fifth day of jury deliberations, and Neely's father announces a civil lawsuit against the Marine Corps veteran. Small donations continued to arrive the following Monday.
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Penny could face up to four years in prison for the minor charge.
Fox News' CB Cotton contributed to this report.
