Judge dismisses manslaughter charge in Daniel Penny trial after jury deadlock

The decide overseeing the trial of Daniel Penny, the person accused of utilizing a lethal chokehold on Jordan Neely final yr on a New York Metropolis subway, dismissed a manslaughter cost within the case Friday after jurors mentioned they have been deadlocked.

The choice, which got here on the request of prosecutors, means the nameless jury will contemplate solely the lesser cost of criminally negligent murder. It carries a most sentence of as much as 4 years. Jurors weren’t instructed that prosecutors made the request. Penny has pleaded not responsible.

“You at the moment are free to contemplate rely two,” Choose Maxwell Wiley instructed jurors. “Whether or not that makes any distinction or not, I do not know.”

The jurors — seven girls and 5 males — will resume deliberations Monday. They twice despatched a word to the decide Friday — one within the morning and one other within the afternoon — saying they may not come to a unanimous determination on the highest cost of manslaughter within the second diploma. After the primary word, Wiley learn jurors what is called an Allen cost, official directions to proceed deliberating “with an open thoughts” to achieve a unanimous verdict.

Earlier than deliberations started Tuesday afternoon, Wiley instructed the jury that it should come to a unanimous determination on the manslaughter cost earlier than it might be allowed to contemplate criminally negligent murder. They have been additionally instructed to determine whether or not Penny’s actions triggered Neely’s demise and, in that case, whether or not he had acted recklessly and in an unjustified method.

Penny, a former Marine and structure scholar, had been coming from class and was on his technique to the gymnasium on the afternoon of Could 1, 2023, when he encountered an erratic Neely on a subway prepare.

Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, threw his jacket to the bottom and loudly ranted about being hungry, thirsty and never caring about whether or not he died or went again to jail when he boarded the prepare, witnesses have testified. Penny put him in a chokehold that prosecutors mentioned lasted six minutes. It continued after the uptown F prepare arrived at its subsequent cease, the Broadway-Lafayette station, bystander video confirmed. Neely, 30, was homeless and had a historical past of psychological sickness. On the time of his demise, he had artificial marijuana — generally known as K2 — in his system.

The case turned a flashpoint within the long-standing debates over racial justice and security throughout the metropolis’s subway system, in addition to town’s failures in addressing homelessness and psychological sickness, each of which Neely had struggled with.

Penny, 26, and his attorneys have mentioned that he acted to guard different passengers and that he didn’t intend to hurt Neely, solely to restrain him till police arrived.

A metropolis health worker discovered that Neely died from compression to his neck because of the chokehold, a discovering that Penny’s attorneys, Thomas Kenniff and Steven Rasier, have disputed.

Outdoors the presence of the jury Friday, Kenniff greater than as soon as requested that the decide declare a mistrial when the jury couldn’t attain an settlement on the manslaughter cost. He additionally objected to the dismissal of the cost.

He mentioned it “is basically elbowing the 12 members of the jury” to drive them into “manufactured unanimity” on the lesser cost.

Earlier than the extra critical cost was dismissed, prosecution and protection attorneys had sparred over whether or not jurors needs to be compelled to proceed deliberating.

“The jury has been deliberating for roughly 20 hours over 4 days in what’s, in some ways, a factually uncomplicated case so far as that is an occasion that transpired over minutes on video,” Kenniff instructed the decide. “We’re involved that the giving of the Allen cost below these circumstances shall be coercive.”

Dafna Yoran, an assistant prosecutor with the Manhattan District Lawyer’s Workplace, disagreed. She mentioned that the morning word was the primary indication of any disagreement throughout the jury and that it might be “a loopy consequence to have a hung jury” as a result of jurors weren’t allowed to contemplate a second rely.

The jurors have despatched the decide 10 or so notes since deliberations started. They requested to rewatch bystander movies of Penny restraining Neely, responding officers’ physique digicam movies and video of Penny’s subsequent interview with two police detectives at a precinct. Additionally they requested to rehear among the health worker’s testimony and for the decide to learn again the definitions of recklessness and prison negligence and to have the definitions in writing.

In between the 2 notes about being deadlocked, jurors additionally requested for clarification or elaboration on the that means of “cheap particular person” within the jury directions.

“The tenor of the notes is that that is a particularly conscientious jury that has been approaching it very systematically,” Wiley mentioned after the protection workforce’s first request for a mistrial Friday. “So I believe it’s appropriate, it’s not time to declare a mistrial. However, however, it’s not time to imagine that they’ve simply despatched this word out as a result of it’s gotten tough for them.”

Later, earlier than dismissing the manslaughter cost, Wiley instructed jurors that he didn’t need them to violate their consciences or abandon their finest judgment.

“I’ll once more urge every of you to make each attainable effort to reach at a simply verdict right here,” he mentioned.

After their first word indicating they have been deadlocked, Wiley counseled the jurors for his or her work to date, and instructed them that it’s not unusual for juries to have issue initially in reaching a unanimous verdict.

“You’ve been at this for just a little over two and a half days,” he instructed the jurors earlier than directing them to renew deliberations. “That’s a very long time. However given the factual complexity of the case, I don’t suppose it’s too lengthy.”