A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted Monday in a death that became a publication of differing views on public safety, courage and vigilance.
A Manhattan jury returned the verdict, acquitting Danielle Penny of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely last year. The more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed earlier in deliberations because the jury deadlocked on that charge.
Both charges were felonies and carried the possibility of prison time.
Penny, 26, held Jordan Neely around the neck for about six minutes in a chokehold that other subway riders partially captured on video.
Benny’s lawyers said he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from a volatile and mentally ill man who was making disturbing statements and gestures. The defense also disputed the city medical examiner’s finding that strangulation killed Neely.
Prosecutors said Benny reacted very aggressively to someone he considered a danger, not a person.
The issue has amplified many American fault lines, including race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness, and homelessness. Indigo was black. Penny is white.
There were sometimes dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, and prominent Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats attended Neeley’s funeral.
The ruling capped a trial that took a turbulent turn last Friday, when jurors said they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the manslaughter charge. The judge then denied the request at the request of prosecutors, something prosecutors rarely do in the midst of a trial.
Benny served four years in the Marine Corps and went on to study architecture.
Neely, 30, was a one-time subway worker with a tragic life story: His mother was murdered and buried in a suitcase when he was a teenager.
As a young man, Neely performed tributes to Michael Jackson — with a moonwalk — on city streets and subways, building his reputation among the artist’s fans and imitators. But Neely was also suffering from mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murder.
Neely was hospitalized for depression at age 14, and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, which sometimes caused him to hallucinate and become paranoid, according to medical records seen at trial. Neely also used the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and realized it negatively affected his thinking and behavior, according to a 2019 hospital log. The drug was in his system when he died.
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Hospital records show Neely told a doctor in 2017 that being homeless, living in poverty and having to “dig through garbage” for food made him feel so worthless and desperate that he sometimes considered killing himself.
About six years later, he took the subway under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, threw his jacket to the ground, and declared he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care if he died or went to prison, witnesses said. Some told 911 operators that he tried to attack people or implied that he was going to hurt passengers, and several testified that they were nervous or outright afraid for their lives.
Neely was defenseless, had only a cake in his pocket, and did not touch any passengers on the train. Many riders testified that he did not even get close to anyone. But one of them said he made impulsive movements that worried her so much that she protected her 5-year-old daughter from him.
Benny, who was on his way from a college class to the gym, came up behind Neely, grabbed him by the neck, took him to the ground and “knocked him out,” he told police at the scene.
At some point during the roughly six-minute wait, Neely tapped a spectator on the leg and gestured at him, video from other passengers showed. At another point, Neely’s arm was briefly freed. But he remained still for about a minute before Benny released him.
“He’s dying,” said an unseen bystander in the background of one of the videos. “Let him go!”
One witness who stepped in to grab Neely’s arms testified that he asked Binney to release the man, although Binney’s attorneys noted that the witness’s story changed dramatically over time.
Penny told investigators shortly after the confrontation that Neely had threatened to kill people and that the strangulation was an attempt to “calm down” the situation until police arrived. The veteran said he held on after the train stopped because he wasn’t sure the doors were open and Neely would periodically squirm.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. ‘That’s what we learn in the Marines,'” Binney told investigators who read him his rights.
However, a Marine combat instructor — who trained Benny — testified that the veteran abused the chokehold he had learned. Prosecutors also say any need to protect passengers quickly receded when the train doors opened at the next stop, seconds after Penney took action.
Although Benny himself told police he used a “chokehold” or “chokehold,” one of his attorneys, Steven Reiser, described it as a chokehold taught in the Marine Corps “modified to be a simple civilian restraint.” Defense attorneys maintained that Penny did not consistently apply enough pressure to kill Neely, and brought their own forensic pathologist to the stand to support their claim.
In contradiction to the city coroner’s ruling, the defense doctor said Neely died not from asphyxiation but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his struggle, restraint and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications during exertion.
Penny decided not to testify. But many of his relatives, friends and fellow Marines did, describing him as an upright, patriotic and compassionate man.
“He was always a very quiet person with a good spirit,” sister Jacqueline Penny told the jury.
Prosecutors never charged Penny with intentionally killing Nellie. The manslaughter charge that was ultimately dismissed required proof that the defendant recklessly caused the death of another person. Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in dangerous “reproachable conduct” without realizing such danger.
During the course of the criminal trial, Nellie’s father filed a wrongful death suit against Benny.
