By Jennifer Peltz
Associated Press
NEW YORK — A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in the death of Jordan Neely.
A Manhattan jury delivered the verdict, clearing Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely’s death last year. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed earlier in deliberations because the jury deadlocked on that count.
Both charges were felonies and carried the possibility of prison time.
Penny, 26, held Jordan Neely around the neck for about six minutes in a chokehold that other subway passengers partially captured on video.
Penny’s lawyers said he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from a volatile, mentally ill man who was making alarming remarks and gestures. The defense also disputed a city medical examiner’s finding that the chokehold killed Neely.
Prosecutors said Penny reacted far too forcefully to someone he perceived as a peril, not a person.
Penny served four years in the Marines and went on to study architecture.
Other passengers’ video showed that at one point during the roughly six-minute hold, Neely tapped an onlooker’s leg and gestured to him. At another juncture, Neely briefly got an arm free. But he went still nearly a minute before Penny released him.
“He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in the background of one video. “Let him go!”
A witness who stepped in to hold down Neely’s arms testified that he told Penny to free the man, though Penny’s lawyers noted the witness’ story changed significantly over time.
Penny told detectives shortly after the encounter that Neely threatened to kill people and the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could arrive. The veteran said he held on after the train stopped because he wasn’t sure the doors were open and Neely periodically squirmed.
“I wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps,” Penny told the detectives, who had read him his rights.
However, a Marine Corps combat instructor — who trained Penny — testified that the veteran misused a chokehold technique he’d been taught. Prosecutors also argue that any need to protect passengers quickly ebbed when the train doors opened at the next station, seconds after Penny took action.
Although Penny himself told police he’d used “a choke” or “a chokehold,” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, cast it as a Marine-taught chokehold “modified as a simple civilian restraint.” The defense lawyers contended that Penny didn’t consistently apply enough pressure to kill Neely, and they brought their own forensic pathologist to the stand to buttress their claim.
Contradicting the city medical examiner’s ruling, the defense pathologist said Neely died not from the chokehold but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his struggle and restraint, and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications during exertion.
Penny decided not to testify.
Prosecutors never accused Penny of deliberately killing Neely. The eventually dismissed manslaughter charge required proving a defendant recklessly caused another person’s death. Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in serious “blameworthy conduct” while not perceiving such a risk.
While the criminal trial played out, Neely’s father filed a wrongful death suit against Penny.