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Daniel Penny’s Subway Chokehold Trial Resumes Monday
The trial of Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old architecture student and Marine Corps veteran, is set to resume on Monday, with attorneys expected to begin their closing arguments after a break for Thanksgiving. Penny is facing up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter for the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old mentally ill homeless man who was high on synthetic marijuana when he barged onto a subway car and started screaming threats at the passengers.
Prosecutors argue that Penny went too far when he put a belligerent, shouting Neely in a chokehold on a Manhattan subway car after he started screaming death threats. Defense attorney Steven Raiser argued that Penny’s use of force was justified, legal, and not the single cause of Neely’s death. “All of those riders and more, Daniel Penny was the one who moved to protect them. Why? Because he had something the others didn’t, something unique to him. His training,” Raiser said.
Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Dafna Yoran countered, “No one had to die on May 1, 2023. Jordan Neely did enter the subway car in an extremely threatening manner… so much less physical force would have done the job… Daniel Penny easily could have restrained Neely without choking him to death. We are here today because the defendant used way too much force for way too long in way too reckless of a manner.”
The prosecution presented a diverse cast of witnesses who testified that Neely was scaring them with death threats in a subway outburst that went above and beyond the typical subway outbursts. Several female passengers testified that they were scared for their lives as Neely barged onto the train, shouting threats and violently throwing his jacket. One witness, Lauri Sitro, said she was scared for her son and felt relieved when Penny stopped Neely from moving around.
The trial has raised concerns about bias and racial undertones, as prosecutors allowed witnesses to describe Penny as “the White man” and referred to the incident as a “homicide,” although there was no murder charge filed in connection with the case. Judge Maxwell Wiley has instructed the jury to disregard the term “homicide,” explaining that it means something different to a medical examiner than it does to a lawyer or a juror.
Penny faces charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, and the jury must find that he acted with “recklessness” to convict on manslaughter and “negligence” for the lesser charge.