Daniel Pen­ny Ver­dict Watch: Jury Still Ask­ing Ques­tions

As delib­er­a­tions con­tin­ued in the tri­al of Daniel Pen­ny, the jury on Thurs­day con­tin­ued to ask ques­tions about the case.

Pen­ny is charged with the killing of Jor­dan Neely, who was alleged­ly threat­en­ing to kill pas­sen­gers on a New York City sub­way train last year. On Thurs­day, jurors con­tin­ued to hear a read-back of the cross-exam­i­na­tion of New York med­ical exam­in­er Dr. Cyn­thia Har­ris, who tes­ti­fied that she made the deter­mi­na­tion Neely died due to asphyx­i­a­tion based on video alone – before the tox­i­col­o­gy report came back.

Accord­ing to jour­nal­ist Matthew Lee, jurors on Thurs­day also request­ed more footage of the inci­dent cap­tured by pas­sen­gers.

Update of 11:45 am – Daniel Pen­ny, lawyers and team have come in. Court secu­ri­ty offi­cers milling around; admo­ni­tions to be qui­et in the court­room.
Judge Wiley comes in.
Judge: We have a note, the jurors want the Vasquez and Rosario videos

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) Decem­ber 5, 2024

In the after­noon, the jury sent anoth­er note to Judge Maxwell Wiley, ask­ing him to reread the def­i­n­i­tion of reck­less­ness and neg­li­gence – words asso­ci­at­ed with Penny’s less­er charge of crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homi­cide, Lee report­ed.

Update of 12:12 pm – Daniel Pen­ny is here and seat­ed.
Judge Wiley: We just got a note, We request that Judge Wiley read the def­i­n­i­tion of reck­less­ness and neg­li­gence. And can we have them in writ­ing.
Do the par­ties give con­sent?

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) Decem­ber 5, 2024

The jury was released for the day with­out ren­der­ing a ver­dict and con­tin­ued delib­er­a­tions on Fri­day.

Pen­ny is also charged with sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter. Jurors can find him guilty of one of the charges or acquit him of all charges. If con­vict­ed of manslaugh­ter, he faces up to 15 years in prison. If con­vict­ed of the less­er charge, he faces up to four years.

Since they began delib­er­at­ing Tues­day after­noon, jurors have asked to review key pieces of evi­dence and spe­cif­ic sec­tions of the jury instruc­tions.

On Wednes­day, jurors asked to review body cam footage from police tak­en as they arrived at the scene after Pen­ny placed Neely in a choke­hold. Pen­ny said he took action because Neely was threat­en­ing pas­sen­gers on the sub­way. They also asked to review the orig­i­nal video of the inci­dent tak­en by anoth­er pas­sen­ger, and the footage from Penny’s inter­ro­ga­tion with police, where they didn’t tell him Neely had died.

Jurors had also asked to be reread the por­tion of Dr. Har­ris’ tes­ti­mo­ny where she said she would not change her opin­ion on Neely’s cause of death even if the tox­i­col­o­gy report showed drugs in his sys­tem.

Defense attor­neys this week report­ed the pros­e­cu­tion to Judge Wiley, say­ing they were act­ing improp­er­ly and pro­vid­ing mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion to the jury through the media, The Dai­ly Wire report­ed. Defense attor­neys accused Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg’s office of ask­ing media out­lets to report in their cov­er­age that there is no manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence for Pen­ny if he is con­vict­ed of sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter.

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“The Dis­trict Attorney’s efforts to have the jury spec­u­late as to a poten­tial sen­tence are both improp­er and mis­lead­ing,” Pen­ny attor­neys Steven Rais­er and Thomas Ken­niff said on Fox News. “While it is tech­ni­cal­ly true that these charges do not car­ry a manda­to­ry min­i­mum, that is the case with most felonies in New York. It is equal­ly true that the max­i­mum sen­tence is 15 years in state prison.”

“More­over, the tenac­i­ty with which the Dis­trict Attor­ney has sought to obtain a con­vic­tion against Mr. Pen­ny strong­ly sug­gests that they will advo­cate for a sub­stan­tial sen­tence in the event of a guilty ver­dict,” the attor­neys added.

A defense attor­ney not con­nect­ed to the case told Fox that the prosecutor’s office could be using this as a ploy to encour­age the jury to find Pen­ny guilty while think­ing he might not serve much prison time.

“Defense lawyers are barred from men­tion­ing poten­tial sen­tences at tri­al — the rea­son­ing being that it would be an attempt to seek sym­pa­thy from jurors who then may reach a ver­dict based on some­thing oth­er than the facts, In oth­er words, ‘He may be guilty, but 10 years is too much time,’” Danielle Iredale told the out­let. “Here, there is a hypocrisy to the DA’s mes­sag­ing. In attempt­ing to pub­lish the fact that there is no statu­to­ry manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence, they are essen­tial­ly say­ing, ‘It’s OK to con­vict, he may not go to the jail!’”