Manslaughter charges have been dropped against Marine vet Daniel Penny, 25, after a Manhattan jury could not agree despite days of deliberation, Breitbart reported. Penny could still face charges for criminally negligent homicide.
In May 2023, Penny was riding a subway when 30-year-old homeless man Jordan Neely came into the car and began threatening passengers. In an effort to subdue Neely, Penny restrained him in a chokehold.
Neely was still alive when police arrived but later died, which triggered the charges. Some believe the prosecution is racially motivated because Penny is white and Neely is black.
The jury in the trial deliberated for days but could not come to agreement about the manslaughter charges even after the judge sent them back with instructions to come up with a unanimous guilty or not guilty verdict. Deliberations will continue next week on the lesser charges.
Judge Maxwell Wiley was within his rights to ask the jurors to devise an "Allen charge." With the jury unable to agree on manslaughter, Penny's defense team believes the judge should have declared a mistrial.
Instead, prosecutors asked Wiley to have the jury consider criminally negligent homicide. The difference lies in the sentencing requirements and the nature of the conduct in question.
For a manslaughter charge, a defendant would face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The court would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the "defendant recklessly caused another person’s death," the news outlet noted.
By contrast, criminally negligent homicide carries a lesser sentence with a minimum of probation and a maximum of four years in behind bars. The criteria for such a charge would be to prove that the defendant exhibited "blameworthy conduct" without considering a risk.
Juries are permitted by law to find a defendant guilty of a lesser charge, but Wiley's decision to throw out manslaughter may complicate the case. The defense argues that only a "not guilty" charge on a higher crime would allow for lesser crimes to be considered.
Although it's a partial victory for the manslaughter charge to be thrown out, many believe the fact that Penny is being prosecuted at all is a blight on the justice system. Former NYPD inspector Paul Mauro told Fox News that bringing this case in the first place was the problem.
"A deadlocked jury on the top charge is not a victory for the defendant in a case that should never have been brought to begin with. Daniel Penny is a young man spending thousands on attorneys, he faces a civil case, and a district attorney’s office that has chosen ideology over law enforcement may well retry him if we get a mistrial," Mauro pointed out.
"His liberty remains at risk. This is not justice," he added. The facts of the case point to Penny's actions as heroic. Neely, who has a criminal record and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, told riders on the subway that somebody would "die today" and that he didn't fear prison.
The passengers believed they were in danger, and Penny stepped forward to protect them that day. It was later revealed that Neely had synthetic marijuana in his system, which could account for his erratic behavior.
Penny should never have seen the inside of a courtroom over this, let alone face murder charges. If there is anything less than a full acquittal for Penny, it means the justice system in New York is not doing its job.
