Daniel Penny went “way too far” when he put Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway until he died last year, a Manhattan prosecutor told jurors Friday during opening statements in Penny’s manslaughter trial.
Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said that while Penny’s original intent to protect other passengers from someone he perceived as a threat was commendable, that praise disappeared when he continued to hold Neely after he lost consciousness and after the other passengers safely reached the had left the train. auto.
“A chokehold is only allowed if it is absolutely necessary and only as long as it is absolutely necessary,” Yoran told the jurors. “And here the suspect went way too far.”
Penny, 26, is charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide in the May 1, 2023, killing of 30-year-old Neely, a homeless black man with a history of mental illness who sometimes entertained subway passengers as a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Yoran said that when Neely boarded the train that day, he was homeless, suffering from mental illness and high in synthetic cannabinoids. He talked about hunger and thirst and made threats that he would hurt people and that he wanted to go back to prison, which scared the people on the train, Yoran said.
But she said Penny was “needlessly reckless” when he grabbed Neely from behind “without hesitation” and took him to the floor of a dirty uptown F train, where Neely would breathe his last.
Penny’s attorney, Thomas Kenniff, said in his opening statement that Penny, a former Marine, did not intend to kill Neely when he placed him in what Kenniff described as “a variation of a non-lethal chokehold.”
Kenniff told jurors that the evidence will show that Penny did not intend to hurt Neely and that he made “every conscious effort” to avoid being killed. The attorney also disputed the city’s chief medical examiner’s finding that Neely died from compression in his neck as a result of the chokehold.
According to Kenniff, Neely had gone through the subway, lunged at passengers and approached a woman who was shielding her son behind a stroller. He said Penny heard Neely say, “I will kill,” which prompted him to take action.
Kenniff said Penny only wanted to hold Neely until police arrived.
There is great interest in Penny’s trial, which has been divisive as some label him a vigilante and others praise him as a hero. The case has also raised concerns about race as a factor in Neely’s death. Penny is white. Neely was black.
Meanwhile, advocates for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness have criticized the city for not doing enough to help people like Neely, who had a history of both.
Before opening statements Friday, protests could briefly be heard outside the courtroom, leading Judge Maxwell Wiley to add to his normal jury instructions a special directive directing jurors to ignore any noise they hear outside.
The twelve-member jury, which is chosen after almost two weeks of jury selection, remains anonymous. Seven of the twelve jurors are women and eight are white.
Yoran accused Penny’s lawyers this week of beating jurors of color. The process is expected to take six weeks.
In addition to opening statements, jurors heard Friday from three police officers who responded to the subway. They described life-saving measures officers and other first responders took to save Neely, including administering Narcan and performing chest compressions.
Kenniff said jurors during the trial would also listen to subway passengers who had feared for their lives.
From that day on, both sides plan to use bystander video footage to argue their case before the jury, with Yoran calling a recording of a train passenger “the most critical piece of evidence during this trial.”
The video, she said, will reveal that Penny approached Neely within 30 seconds of Neely boarding the train and continued to hold him down even after two men helped him pin Neely to the ground. At that point, Yoran said, Neely, who was 6 feet tall and weighed about 150 pounds at the time of his death, was outnumbered and “a chokehold was not necessary,” but Penny did not relent.
But Kenniff said the videos wouldn’t tell the whole story. He said that by the time people started recording, Penny had been struggling to control Neely for two minutes.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
