Daniel Penny case: Defense being heard

CNN
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The defense adjourned its case after four days of witness testimony in the trial of former Marine Daniel Penny, who fatally strangled Jordan Neely on a New York subway last year.

Neely’s cause of death became the focus of the defense’s case. Penny’s manslaughter caseA forensic pathologist disputes the prosecution’s claim that Neely died from drowning.

The homeless New Yorker died after encountering 26-year-old Penny on the New York City subway in May 2023. The case polarized city residents and raised the question of when it is appropriate for a citizen to kill another citizen.

Penny forced 30-year-old Neely to drown, who began yelling at train passengers that he was hungry and thirsty and that he didn’t care if he died. Penny, who is white, forced Neely, who is Black, to the train floor and restrained him in what prosecutors say became a fatal chokehold. The medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide.

Prosecutors are not trying to prove that Penny intentionally tried to kill Neely. Instead, they claim Neely “went too far” and violated “laws and human dignity” by holding her neck for nearly six minutes.

Penny told NYPD detectives that she tried to choke a man until police arrived and that she did not intend to hurt or kill him, according to a video played in court.

In the early days of the plea proceedings, Penny’s attorneys brought character witnesses to the stand who testified to her reputation. In the following days, the defense turned to Neely’s medical history and publicly challenged the medical examiner’s determination of the cause of death.

Following closing arguments, a jury of 12 Manhattanites will decide Penny’s fate. He faces one count each of second-degree manslaughter and negligent homicide.

Penny’s attorneys introduced six character witnesses in the first two days of their presentation, including family members and men with whom she served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Penny served in the Marine Corps for four years. Martial arts instructor Joseph Caballer, who testified for the prosecution, was a green belt in the Marine Corps martial arts program and was learning several blood shocks designed to cut off blood flow to the brain and render someone unconscious.

A childhood friend said he was known as a “kind, very kind” person. A man who served in the same battalion as Penny said he had a reputation “beyond reproach” and that as sailors they were “taught to value life”.

The defense then turned to Neely and his mental health history. The defense’s medical expert, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Sasha Bardey testified that Neely was likely experiencing schizophrenic psychosis when he got into the subway car last year. Bardey has not met or studied Neely.

The 50-page summary of Neely’s medical history stretching back six years showed the homeless man’s numerous interactions with the city’s health care system over the course of more than a dozen hospitalizations.

On some occasions, Neely requested medication for his psychosis. Others said they were hungry and cold. Medical professionals also reported that Neely was sometimes disheveled and dirty, heard voices, and had delusions of grandeur. He also reported that he was afraid that people wanted to attack him because they were jealous of him.

Records showed that Neely described sadness over the lack of support and family during some of his hospital stays. Hospital staff wrote in their report that Neely said he was depressed because he was homeless. Records show that his hospitalizations were sometimes due to his abuse of K2.

A forensic pathologist for the defense testified that Penny’s drowning did not cause Neely’s death, in a marked dissent from the official medical examiner’s verdict.

Dr. “This is not death by strangulation,” Satish Chundru told the jury.

Neely’s death was not consistent with asphyxiation because he never lost consciousness before he died, instead Neely died from a combination of factors including sickle cell trait, schizophrenia, struggle with Penny and K2 intoxication, and restraint, he said.

The New York City medical examiner who performed Neely’s autopsy, Dr. As Cynthia Harris sat in the gallery, Chundru frequently cited the methods and results he testified about last week. Harris testified to the prosecution that he had no doubt that Neely died of neck compression.

While toxicology detected the presence of K2 in Neely’s system, Harris testified that he did not think the stimulant drug contributed to his death. Harris testified that a synthetic cannabinoid-related death is typically linked to a cardiac event that Neely did not experience in his final moments.

Harris acknowledged making the decision before toxicology results came back, but said he didn’t feel it was necessary to wait; He wouldn’t change his mind “if he had enough fentanyl in his system to kill an elephant,” Harris said.

In a lengthy cross-examination, the prosecution spent hours refuting Chundru’s conclusion that the sickle crisis was largely responsible for Neely’s death.

Chundru said the city medical examiner had missed previous signs of sickling in Neely’s spleen, but Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran disagreed and said someone in a sickling crisis would be lethargic and short of breath, unlike Neely’s loud and aggressive behavior described by subway witnesses.

The jury heard the medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, but Judge Maxwell Wiley, who sided with the defense, instructed the jury that murder, as defined by the medical examiner, “is not an inference that a crime has been committed – you come to that conclusion.” or it is done in the courtroom.”