A Manhattan prosecutor admitted Friday that it may be difficult for jurors to convict former Marine Daniel Penny of “recklessly” choking mentally ill subway musician Jordan Neely on a crowded train.
“This is not an easy case… of a bad man doing a bad thing,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran told a group of 16 potential jurors who may be chosen to decide whether Penny is guilty of manslaughter and criminal homicide. negligence in May 2023. murder caught on camera.
Penny, 25, craned his neck and stared at the potential panelists as Yoran explained that prosecutors will not allege he intended to kill Neely, 30, when he placed him in a chokehold for more than six minutes in an F- northbound train. approached the Broadway-Lafayette station.
“It’s not easy to find someone guilty of killing someone when you know he didn’t mean it,” Yoran said during the fifth day of jury selection in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Yoran also asked the group if they could decide the legal issues in the case even after hearing “nice things” about Penny, including that he had served in the U.S. Marines for four years.
“You’re not here to judge the suspect as a person… You’re here to find out what happened and whether he committed this crime,” she said.
The prosecutor noted that the tragic episode began after the unarmed Neely, who suffered from mental illness and was “self-medicating” with the synthetic marijuana drug K2, acted “erratically and threateningly” toward straphangers before Penny restrained him.
“So he’s the one who really started moving,” Yoran said of Neely. “It may be tempting to think that he is self-inflicted and responsible for his own death.”
But “under the law, all life is the same,” the prosecutor said.
After being questioned by Judge Maxwell Wiley and the district attorney, more than a half-dozen of the potential jurors also said they felt “personally threatened” while riding the city subway.
One prospective juror, an older white man living in Battery Park City, said he experienced “aggressive manipulation” in the 1980s.
Another potential panelist, a younger black man who moved to New York from Atlanta three years ago, was later asked whether, if the evidence supported it, he could determine that Penny was “reckless and unjustified” in his actions.
He seemed unsure in his answer.
“It’s two people, but it’s one where you don’t really know at this point what that person is going to do.” he replied.
No jurors have yet been chosen for a trial expected to last six weeks.
The trial continues Monday, with Penny’s attorneys getting a chance to question potential jurors.
Penny faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter.
