A panel of Manhattanites was asked whether they could convict a man of taking another’s life if that hadn’t been his intention as jury selection continued Friday at former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny’s manslaughter trial for the death of Jordan Neely.
Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran told 16 prospective jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court that Penny didn’t mean to kill Neely when he subdued him in a chokehold aboard an uptown F train on May 1, 2023.
The prosecutor said Penny’s original intent to protect frightened passengers — including “women and children” — from a homeless man acting erratic was “laudable,” not evil, but that his ultimate response “was so exaggerated that it was reckless” and violated the law. She asked them if they would be able to make the distinction.
“Initially, it was a very good intent,” Yoran said. “It was the intent to protect people on the subway car from a person he perceived to be a threat. That was the defendant’s initial intent.”
“It’s not easy finding someone guilty of killing somebody when you know they didn’t mean it,” she continued. “What we’re going to prove to you is that he went too far — way too far.”
Penny, 25, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the incident that played out between two subway stops on a Monday afternoon last year. The fateful encounter occurred after Neely boarded the train at Second Ave. and started screaming that he was willing to die or go to prison, according to court documents.
Prosecutors allege that after intervening, Penny recklessly disregarded the 30-year-old Neely’s life by continuing to restrain him in a lethal chokehold for some six minutes, including “well past the point” that Neely stopped moving and after passengers had exited from the train car.
Neely, who was homeless and battling untreated schizophrenia at the time, was known to many New Yorkers as a Michael Jackson tribute artist. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley on Friday denied a request from the defense to block evidence that Neely was unarmed during the encounter that was mostly captured in cell phone footage by bystanders.
Yoran told the prospective panelists that, if selected to decide the case, they would hear about Penny’s service in the Marines, as well as the victim’s history of addiction to the synthetic drug K2 and brushes with the law — but that those facts could have no bearing on their verdict.
“Something that you’re not going to be able to consider in this case is sympathy,” Yoran said, noting that some might be tempted to conclude Neely “brought this on himself.”
“Under the law,” the prosecutor said, “all life is the same.”
Prospective jurors, none of whom have been selected yet for the trial, volunteered different perspectives. More than six of them questioned Friday said they personally had felt threatened at some point riding the subways in New York City. Wiley ruled earlier this week that jurors’ identities would remain anonymous.
“I think I need to be excused from this because I don’t buy it at all, lady,” one older man, an Upper West Side resident from Tennessee, said.
Another man who lives in Harlem and is originally from Connecticut, who described himself as a “weed connoisseur,” said he’d be able to judge the case impartially.
“At the end of the day, law is law,” he said. “If the evidence proves itself correct, it is what it is.”
Penny, who could face up to 15 years in state prison on the top count if convicted, watched intently as Yoran walked potential jurors through themes that would come up during the trial. His defense team has claimed his actions were reasonable. They’re expected to query prospective jurors when the trial picks up Monday.
Penny’s attorney, Thomas Kenniff, told the Daily News, “We’re very confident that the evidence and the facts are in our client’s favor, and once a jury gets to see all the evidence, that they’ll acquit.”