Jury In Daniel Pen­ny Tri­al Says They’re Dead­locked Over Manslaugh­ter Charge

Jurors on Fri­day sent a note to the judge say­ing they can­not reach a con­sen­sus on whether to con­vict Daniel Pen­ny of “reck­less­ly” caus­ing the death of Jor­dan Neely, a home­less man who was alleged­ly threat­en­ing pas­sen­gers on a New York City sub­way train last year.

The jury, which has been delib­er­at­ing since Tues­day after­noon, must deter­mine whether Pen­ny caused Neely’s death by “reck­less­ly” keep­ing him in a choke­hold after fright­ened pas­sen­gers left the train, the New York Post report­ed, or whether his actions amount­ed to a less­er charge of crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homi­cide.

If con­vict­ed of sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter, Pen­ny faces up to 15 years in prison. If con­vict­ed of the less­er charge, he faces up to four years.

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As the Post report­ed, if the jury can­not reach a ver­dict, Judge Maxwell Wiley will be required to give them an “Allen” charge, encour­ag­ing them to con­tin­ue delib­er­a­tions to reach a unan­i­mous ver­dict on count 1 of the indict­ment.

The pros­e­cu­tion has argued that Pen­ny, a 26-year-old Marine vet­er­an, held Neely in a choke­hold for six min­utes in May 2023, caus­ing Neely’s death. Penny’s defense, mean­while, has argued that there is doubt about whether Neely died from the choke­hold or if he died due to his med­ical con­di­tion and the drugs in his sys­tem at the time of his death.

Jurors have been ask­ing to review cru­cial evi­dence in the case, includ­ing videos from the inci­dent and Penny’s police inter­ro­ga­tion, dur­ing which he was not told Neely had died. They have also asked Wiley to reread the def­i­n­i­tions of reck­less­ness and neg­li­gence, The Dai­ly Wire report­ed.

Jurors have also asked to be reread por­tions of New York med­ical exam­in­er Dr. Cyn­thia Har­ris’ cross-exam­i­na­tion, where she tes­ti­fied that she made the deter­mi­na­tion Neely died due to asphyx­i­a­tion based on video alone – before the tox­i­col­o­gy report came back.

The case has divid­ed the coun­try, with many believ­ing Neely is the vic­tim and oth­ers, includ­ing “America’s Most Want­ed” cre­ator John Walsh, believ­ing Pen­ny is a hero for pro­tect­ing pas­sen­gers.

On Wednes­day, Neely’s father filed a law­suit against Pen­ny for the death of his son, the New York Post report­ed, demand­ing “judg­ment award­ing dam­ages in a sum which exceeds the juris­dic­tion­al lim­its of all low­er Courts which would oth­er­wise have juris­dic­tion.”