Jurors began deliberating Tuesday afternoon in the trial of a military veteran charged with using a fatal chokehold to subdue a man whose behavior was alarming passengers on a New York subway train.
The anonymous jury is weighing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges in the death of Jordan Neely, a troubled street performer who was homeless. The veteran, Daniel Penny, has pleaded not guilty.
The judge told jurors that if they found Penny guilty of the manslaughter charge, they needn't consider the criminally negligent homicide charge. If the jury finds Penny not guilty of manslaughter, he cannot be found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, according to the judge. However, if the jury reaches a not guilty verdict for manslaughter for a reason other than lack of justification, then they can consider the second charge.
Penny, 26, has said he was protecting fellow subway riders and intended only to restrain Neely and hold him for police, not to hurt him. Prosecutors say the Marine veteran used far too much force for too long when he gripped Neely by the neck for about six minutes.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
The case went to the jury around 1:15 p.m. The deliberations follow a month of testimony in the closely watched case. It has animated debate about public safety, societal responses to mental illness and homelessness, the line between self-defense and aggression, and the role of race in all of it.
The 30-year-old Neely, who was Black, sometimes entertained passersby with Michael Jackson impersonations but also struggled with depression, schizophrenia and drug use after his mother was strangled during his teen years. Penny, who is white, was a college architecture student who served four years in the Marines.
Witnesses said Neely boarded a train under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, started moving erratically, yelling about his hunger and thirst and proclaiming that he was ready to die, to go to jail or — as Penny and some other passengers recalled — to kill.
Penny came up behind Neely, grabbed his neck and head and took him to the floor. The veteran later told police he'd held Neely in “a choke” and “put him out” to ensure he wouldn't hurt anyone.
City medical examiners ruled that Neely was killed by having his neck compressed in a chokehold. A pathologist hired by Penny’s defense contradicted that finding, attributing the death to a variety of other factors.
Penny's lawyers argued that he used what they term a “civilian restraint,” departing from the chokehold technique he'd been taught in the military in order to control Neely without rendering him unconscious. Prosecutors say Neely had the training to know that what he was doing could kill.
