By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A prosecutor instructed jurors on Friday that the previous U.S. Marine sergeant who fatally strangled Jordan Neely on a New York Metropolis subway automotive was detached to Neely’s humanity, and needlessly continued his lethal chokehold for greater than 5 minutes.
Daniel Penny, 26, has pleaded not responsible to prices of manslaughter and criminally negligent murder and mentioned he by no means supposed to kill Neely. He has mentioned that Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a historical past of psychological sickness, was threatening passengers earlier than he intervened on an uptown practice on Could 1, 2023.
“His initial attempt was even laudable: to protect fellow New Yorkers from a perceived threat,” Assistant District Legal professional Dafna Yoran instructed jurors in a gap assertion. “But deadly physical force is permitted only when it’s absolutely necessary and only for as long as it’s absolutely necessary, and here the defendant went way too far.”
The killing gained widespread public consideration, with some viewing Neely, who was Black, as a sufferer of a vigilante. Others, together with some Republican politicians, feted Penny, who’s white, as a hero.
Yoran described Neely because the kind of homeless particular person with psychological sickness that New Yorkers practice themselves to disregard. Boarding the practice automotive, Neely threw his coat to the ground, screaming that he was hungry, thirsty and needed to return to jail. Witnesses will testify to the jurors that it was scarier than the same old New York subway encounter, Yoran mentioned.
“His voice was loud and his words were threatening,” Yoran instructed jurors, though he was not armed and never bodily threatening any explicit particular person. Inside 30 seconds of Neely getting on the subway automotive, Penny got here up behind him and used his left arm to squeeze Neely’s neck.
“He went quite literally for the jugular,” Yoran mentioned. Moments later, the practice pulled right into a station, and nearly everybody obtained off the automotive, whereas Penny continued to choke Neely on the ground of the subway automotive for an additional 5 minutes and 53 seconds, sustaining the chokehold even after Neely fell unconscious.
A lawyer for Penny, Thomas Kennis, instructed jurors that Penny was a university pupil and on his option to the gymnasium that afternoon.
“He still has no way of anticipating what is about to happen as the subway doors are about to close and a seething, psychotic man storms on and announces his presence,” Kennis mentioned. Penny was prompted to behave when he watched Neely transfer towards a girl with a younger baby, uttering the phrases: “I will kill,” he mentioned.
“What Danny does is leap into action,” Kennis mentioned. “Danny’s conduct that day wasn’t consistent with someone who devalued human life.”
Kennis instructed jurors that the proof is not going to show Neely died by asphyxiation, and that his loss of life might have been a results of medicine in his physique and the “excitement” of the battle. He mentioned Penny at instances loosened his grip round Neely’s neck.
Jurors will see cellphone movies recorded from the platform. Yoran mentioned that, as a Marine, Penny was educated in first help and knew the chokehold he was utilizing may very well be lethal.
“You will see Mr. Neely’s life being snuffed out before your very eyes, but what you will also see in this video is how unnecessary this deadly chokehold was,” Yoran mentioned. She famous that two males stayed on the automotive to assist Penny restrain Neely.
“With the police clearly on their way, with the train virtually empty, the defendant’s chokehold on Jordan Neely was just beginning,” Yoran mentioned.
