Daniel Penny “acted to save” subway riders from a “desperate” Jordan Neely, his lawyer argued Monday — asking jurors in the lightning-rod Manhattan trial: “Who would you want on the next train with you?”
“Danny acted when others didn’t,” defense attorney Steven Raiser said during his closing statement in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“He put his life on the line. He did that for perfect strangers,” he said of Penny, 26, who is is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide over the fatal May 2023 encounter.
Raiser invited jurors to imagine how they would have felt had they been on the F train car where Neely — a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness and drug abuse — threatened straphangers before Penny put him in a chokehold.
“Who would you want on the next train ride with you?” Raiser asked, near the end of his hours-long long summation.
“The guy on the train with the earbuds minding his own business, who you know will be there for you if something happens?” the attorney continued. “Or, you just hope someone like Neely never enters, especially when you’re all alone.”
But Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran countered that the Marine veteran went “way” too far by keeping the unarmed, mentally ill homeless man in a fatal chokehold for six minutes — long after he could reasonably have been considered a deadly threat.
“We are here today because the defendant used way too much force for way too long to way too reckless of a manner,” Yoran said.
“We as a society cannot tolerate the unjustifiable death of a fellow citizen,” she added.
The prosecutor told jurors that “no one had to die” during the May 1, 2023 encounter on the uptown F train as it approached the Broadway-Lafayette station.
Penny was justified in his initial takedown of Neely, who was menacing bystanders in what a witness called an “unhinged” rant, the prosecutor conceded.
But Penny’s actions turned criminal when he kept holding Neely’s neck even after nearly all of the terrified straphangers had left the train car, and for 51 seconds after Neely passed out, she argued.
“There is no conceivable justification under the law, and human decency, to hold an unconscious man in a chokehold,” Yoran said, while displaying for jurors a still frame of a bystander of Neely
“Was the defendant justified in using deadly physical force on Mr. Neely? Absolutely not,” she added.
Penny, of Long Island, sat at the defense table in a brown suit and maroon tie during the closing statements. He looked straight ahead, in the direction of the judge, without appearing to make eye contact with jurors.
His lawyer argued Monday morning that Penny “moved to protect” his fellow train riders because acting to save others is what he learned while in the US Marines.
“He had something the others didn’t, something unique to him. His training,” Raiser told the jury. “Danny acted to save those people.”
Yoran countered that Penny should have known from his Marine training that there were many other ways to restrain Neely other than keeping him in what turned out to be a fatal chokehold.
Penny “could have easily restrained Jordan Neely without choking him to death,” she told jurors.
Penny’s lawyer, earlier in the day, attempted to sow doubt in the city medical examiner’s finding that the chokehold is what caused Neely’s death.
The attorney also sought to highlight what he called Penny’s “softer side,” noting that he’s an avid surfer and had been studying architecture at the time of the confrontation.
“Danny is not just a former Marine,” Raiser told jurors.
Raiser also used the term “civilian restraint,” rather than a chokehold, to describe Penny’s actions.
“He holds him until police arrives. Never to render him unconscious and never to try to hurt him,” the lawyer said.
Penny was greeted with shouts of “Guilty!” on his way into Manhattan Supreme Court Monday morning.
A group of a dozen protesters chanted, “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” he exited a black SUV outside the 100 Centre St. courthouse.
“What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” the demonstrators shouted.