NEW YORK – The Manhattan jurors weighing the destiny of Marine veteran Daniel Penny return to courtroom Monday, however solely to contemplate the lesser cost towards him after a choose controversially tossed the extra critical cost and prevented a mistrial.
Judge Maxwell Wiley on Friday agreed to the prosecution’s request to dismiss essentially the most critical cost, second diploma manslaughter, after jurors twice informed the courtroom they’d deadlocked on the problem.
They had beforehand been instructed to deliberate the lesser cost of criminally negligent murder provided that they discovered Penny not responsible of manslaughter for some purpose apart from an absence of justification.
“Manslaughter within the second diploma is dismissed,” Wiley informed the jurors earlier than sending them house Friday. “What which means is you at the moment are free to contemplate rely two. Whether that makes any distinction, I don’t know.”
DANIEL PENNY MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE DISMISSED AS JURY BREAKS FOR WEEKEND
Daniel Penny arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on Thursday, December 5, 2024. The jury is getting into their third day of deliberations in Penny’s trial for the 2023 loss of life of Jordan Neely on a Manhattan F prepare. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital)
They return Monday to contemplate solely the lesser cost.
The protection had opposed the last-minute cost swap, arguing it offered a violation of state legal guidelines and will encourage a precedent the place prosecutors overcharge from the beginning, realizing they will downgrade costs in a while the fly if their case would not rise up.
“The threat right here of a coercive verdict or a compromised verdict…New York is evident that compromised verdicts are discouraged,” Penny’s attorneys informed the choose. “It would drive them into what we’d submit can be manufactured, as to the lesser rely of prison negligence.”
While the choose agreed the protection was appropriately stating the legislation, he stated he would “take an opportunity” and dismiss the top charge.
DANIEL PENNY TRIAL: KEY EVIDENCE JURORS ASKED TO SEE AGAIN DURING DELIBERATIONS
Screenshot from bystander video exhibiting Jordan Neely being held in a chokehold on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez through Storyful)
“We are cautiously optimistic that the one remaining rely shall be dismissed by the jury on Monday,” one among Penny’s protection attorneys, Steven Raiser, informed Fox News Friday. “That would lastly put this nightmare behind Danny and permit us to deal with the civil lawsuit, filed two days in the past, for a similar allegations contained within the prison indictment.”
Penny, 26, was an structure pupil at City Tech in Brooklyn on May 1, 2023, when he was taking an F prepare to a health club after class and Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia and excessive on medicine, barged onto the prepare and began shouting threats at passengers.
“Now the choose is telling the jury, ‘overlook concerning the legislation, overlook about what I informed you,'” Fox News authorized analyst informed “Fox & Friends” Monday morning. “His ruling additionally violates the New York procedural legislation that forbids dismissal at this late stage throughout deliberations except either side agree. The protection did not agree.”
DANIEL PENNY TRIAL: JURORS ASKED TO SEE KEY EVIDENCE AGAIN DURING DELIBERATIONS
Many witnesses testified they have been horrified in the course of the ordeal and relieved when Penny put an finish to the outburst by putting Neely in a headlock and wrestling him to the bottom, the place he and different passengers held him for a number of minutes.
Penny remained on the scene and spoke with responding officers. He additionally agreed to talk with NYPD detectives on the fifth Precinct constructing.
“He was speaking gibberish… however these guys are pushing folks in entrance of trains and stuff,” he informed investigators. There have been greater than 20 subway shoves within the 12 months earlier than Penny’s encounter with Neely.
Jordan Neely is pictured earlier than going to see the Michael Jackson film, “This is It,” outdoors the Regal Cinemas on eighth Ave. and forty second St. in Times Square, New York, in 2009. (Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service through Getty Images)
Just three days earlier, a subway rider had been stabbed with an ice decide on a J prepare, in keeping with reports from the time. It was a few month after a PBS reporter received sucker punched on a No. 4 prepare. There was a shove per week earlier than that, and the sufferer hit the facet of a shifting R prepare and survived.
Jurors spent most of final week deliberating and failed to return to a unanimous choice on the highest cost.
“Judge Wiley ought to have declared a mistrial,” Andrew McCarthy, a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in a Fox News op-ed Sunday. “To proceed at this level is to hunt to browbeat the jury right into a conviction. I additional imagine it will violate New York criminal-procedure legislation.”
Penny’s protection fundraiser on GiveSendGo has garnered greater than $3 million in donations from supporters across the nation, and small greenback contributions proceed to reach Monday, on the fifth day of jury deliberations and after Neely’s father introduced a civil lawsuit towards the Marine vet.
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Penny faces a most of 4 years in jail on the lesser cost.
Fox News’ CB Cotton contributed to this report.
