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Defense Attorneys React to Daniel Penny’s Not-Guilty Verdict in Subway Chokehold Death Case
Daniel Penny’s defense attorneys, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, have spoken out for the first time since their client was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely. Raiser and Kenniff expressed shock at the final days of the trial, particularly Judge Maxwell Wiley’s decision to dismiss the second-degree manslaughter charge after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the top charge. The judge then instructed the jury to consider the second charge of criminally negligent homicide, a move Raiser called “unprecedented” and potentially encouraging a “compromise verdict.”
The defense team was concerned that the jury would be influenced to reach a verdict on the lesser charge, and they felt that the district attorney’s office was going to great lengths to secure a conviction, which was “off-putting” for the defense team. Raiser and Kenniff hope that Penny will take a “nice long vacation” after the case, although he still faces a civil lawsuit from Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, who accuses Penny of causing his son’s death through “negligence, carelessness, and recklessness.”
