Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office reminds Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny that if he is found guilty of second-degree manslaughter at trial, there is no mandatory minimum prison sentence. Mr. Penny's lawyer told a judge this week that he has actively sought out the media.
The 26-year-old aspiring architect faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of killing Jordan Neely on the Manhattan F train.
Neely jumped into a subway car with a woman and her children, screaming: “Someone is going to die today” and warning them that he was not afraid of going to prison for life. Penny grabbed him in a chokehold or headlock and forced him to the ground, whereupon he died.
Penny's attorneys, Stephen Reiser and Thomas Kenniff, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the district attorney's efforts to force jurors to speculate about possible sentencing were inappropriate and misleading. ” he said. “While it is technically true that these charges do not have mandatory minimums, this is the case for most felonies in New York State. It is equally true that the maximum sentence is 15 years in state prison.”
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Daniel Penny arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 4, 2024 in New York, New York. A jury will continue deliberating in the second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide trial for the 2023 death of Jordan Neely in New York City. subway train. (Adam Gray, Fox News Digital)
Penny's defense attorneys raised concerns at trial that prosecutors overstepped their bounds and unfairly portrayed the altercation as having racial overtones, even though they did not allege a hate crime. I have been raising this all along.
“Furthermore, the tenacity with which the district attorney has sought to obtain a conviction against Mr. Penny strongly suggests that he will advocate for a substantial sentence if a guilty verdict is reached.” said the lawyers.
Outside experts said there were several possible explanations for what Mr. Bragg's office said was “contextually factual.”
It is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, for prosecutors to use the press to allay public anxiety in the event of a conviction.
“Defense attorneys are prohibited from addressing potential sentencing at trial because it would be an attempt to gain sympathy from jurors who might decide on something other than the facts. “He may be guilty, but 10 years is too long,'' said Daniel Iredale, who previously represented New York subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz in a marijuana case. “There's hypocrisy in the DA's message here. In trying to publicize the fact that there is no statutory minimum sentence, they are essentially saying, 'We don't care if you're guilty, you don't have to go to jail! 'It's the same as saying '
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg appears at the trial of Daniel Penny after a lunch break at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building on Monday, December 2, 2024 in New York City. Closing arguments in Penny's trial for the 2023 Jordan subway death are scheduled to begin today. Neely. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital) (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
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Goetz was involved in one of New York City's most high-profile self-defense cases. He shot four teenage robbers with an unlicensed handgun, paralyzing one of them. Jurors found him not guilty of attempted murder, but he spent several months in prison on illegal firearms charges. Iredale represented him in a low-level pot case in the 2010s that was ultimately dismissed.
“It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a prosecutor's office to use the media to assuage public anxiety in the event of a conviction,” said a former prosecutor who was detained in New York and now works in San Diego. Iredale told FOX News Digital. . “This suggests a recognition by prosecutors that public opinion does not support this prosecution. This move raises serious questions about whether prosecutors believe they should have filed the charges in the first place. ”
On April 8, 1996, subway gunman Bernhard Goetz appeared in Bronx Supreme Court to testify in a $50 million lawsuit brought by one of the young black men he shot and killed during an attempted robbery. After the subway shooting 12 years ago, Goetz became a symbol of New York City's fight against crime. (Mark Cardwell/Reuters)
Legal experts said Bragg may have been trying to save face by filing a lawsuit against a man seen by many witnesses as a good Samaritan.
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“Apparently [the Manhattan DA] “I have finally read the proceedings regarding the unpopularity and weakness of this case and may be considering asking the judge for a 'non-murder' sentence if convicted,” the former New Yorker said. City Police Department Inspector Paul Mauro used this term when he said: “If that's the case, they shouldn't have started this case in the first place.”
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)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also spoke out in defense of Penny.
“We're on the subway right now, and we're talking about someone hurting someone, killing someone,” Adams said on “The Rob Astorino Show” on Nov. 30. I'm listening to it,” he said. “You have someone [Penny] Who on the subway responded and did what the city should have done? ”
Mr. Bragg may also be concerned that judges may impose lighter sentences regardless of what prosecutors seek.
Former Lancaster County District Attorney Matthew Mangino said, “The district attorney may be trying to get people into the mindset of, “He's been convicted, but the judge is going to give this guy a lenient sentence.'' I can't do it,” he said. Pennsylvania. “And on the other hand, given the way the trial proceeded, even the prosecutors may be saying that Penny's actions were admirable. Penny intervened, but she went too far. And perhaps the DA's office is telling people that Penny's actions were admirable. It may be that they are preparing for the recommendation of ”
But in closing arguments this week, Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yolan aggressively painted Penny as an unscrupulous man who didn't see Neely's “humanity.” Penny remained at the scene and voluntarily spoke to police, but police did not tell them that Neely was dead.
Prosecutor Dafna Göran leaves the trial of Daniel Penny at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building on Monday, December 2, 2024 in New York City. Both sides have begun closing arguments in Penny's trial over the 2023 subway death of Jordan Neely. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
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“Penny stood there for 10 minutes, watching the resuscitation efforts, and not once did Penny say, 'Oh, by the way, what happened to that guy?'” “He's a very kind and empathetic person, but he seems to have a real blind spot towards Mr. Neely,” she told jurors.
In speaking with detectives, Penny described Neely as a “thug” and raised concerns about the string of violent subway crimes leading up to the incident, crimes that progressives spent years downplaying under the Bragg administration. expressed.
“He was talking gibberish…but they're shoving people in front of trains and stuff,” he told detectives. In the year before Penny met Neely, there were more than 20 subway crashes.
Danielle Penny poses for a photo on Tuesday, June 6, 2023 in Mineola, New York. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
According to news reports at the time, a J Train strap hanger had been stabbed with an ice pick just three days earlier. It was about a month after a PBS reporter was sucker punched on the 4th train. 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.
A witness, 19-year-old student Yvette Rosario, said Neely yelled, “Someone is going to die that day.”
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But Mr Yoran told the jury that Mr Penny “did not seem to recognize Mr Neely's humanity and was reckless with Mr Neely's life”.
“He saw him as someone who needed to be removed,” she said.
The defendant's remorse may be an important factor in sentencing. But it has less to do with guilt.
“Remorse is a big issue at sentencing,” said Neema Rahmani, a Los Angeles-based trial attorney and former federal prosecutor. “Judges want to see someone who has accepted responsibility for their actions. That has no bearing on guilt or innocence.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
