Daniel Penny acquitted in subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, sparking applause, uproar in NYC courtroom
A Manhattan jury has cleared Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a crowded subway — a caught-on-video killing that sparked fierce debate over the city’s mental health system and crime underground.
The courtroom erupted in applause as the panelists acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide — which could have put him behind bars for up to four years — in Neely’s chokehold death aboard a crowded uptown F train in May 2023.
“We the jury have come to a unanimous decision on count two,” the foreperson on the jury told the courtroom.
Penny immediately broke out a huge smile and turned to hug defense attorney Thomas Kenniff — even as Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, was escorted from the courtroom.
“Racist f—ing country,” one Black Lives Matter supporter yelled as she left the room. Another Neely supporter, turning to Penney, screamed, “It’s a small world, buddy,” before leaving the room.
Manslaughter, the top charge against Penny, was tossed on Friday after jurors twice said they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.
Jurors sided with Penny’s defense attorneys, who had argued that the Marine veteran was justified in rushing to protect his fellow subway straphangers when he subdued the erratic homeless man. The lawyers had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold caused Neely’s death.
“Who do you want on the next train ride with you?” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, in his closing statement in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“The guy with the earbuds minding his own business who you know would be there for you if something happened? Or perhaps you just hope that someone like Jordan Neely does not enter that train when you are all alone, all alone in a crowd of others frozen with fear?”
The lawyers had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold caused Neely’s death.
The verdict drew an immediate reaction from across the nation.
“Daniel Penny’s actions were heroic & protected the lives of people on that train,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X.
“We used to celebrate bravery like this in America, but the Left continues their crusade to protect criminals and prosecute heroes,” Johnson said. “Good to see this charge dismissed.”
In the Big Apple, city Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) said the jury’s decision “underscores nothing other than the perverse sense of justice held by [Manhattan DA] Alvin Bragg.
“Every New Yorker is fearful on the subway and had no problem understanding the context of Daniel Penny’s actions,” he said. “The district attorney should resign in shame.”
The acquittal comes after jurors heard from more than 40 witnesses, including passengers who described Neely’s terrifying outburst on the train before Penny approached him from behind and took him down at the Broadway-Lafayette station.
One straphanger testified she was “scared s–tless” hearing Neely ranting about being “willing to die and go to jail.” She later thanked Penny for stepping in to restrain Neely, who also raged that “someone is going to die today.”
Another woman on the train told jurors that she feared for her life after hearing Neely’s “satanic” rant.
And a mother who was taking her 5-year-old son to a doctor’s appointment testified that she was so scared of a “belligerent and unhinged” Neely that she barricaded her son behind his stroller.
No witness testified that Neely put his hands on anyone, or lunged at a specific person, before Penny put him in the chokehold. Evidence during the month-long trial also revealed that Neely was not carrying a weapon at the time — with cops finding only a muffin in his pocket.
The polarizing case kicked off fierce conversation about a mentally ill man who was failed by the city’s broken system — a sentiment even Mayor Eric Adams expressed, saying Penny did “what we should have done as a city” by protecting others that day.
Prosecutors argued that Penny went “too far” — and that his actions turned criminal when he kept Neely in the hold after nearly all of the frightened passengers had fled the train.
“What’s so tragic about this case is that even though the defendant started out trying to do the right thing, as the chokehold progressed, the defendant knew that Jordan Neely was in great distress and dying, and he needlessly continued,” prosecutor Dafna Yoran said in her closing statement.
Jurors watched frame-by-frame footage from a bystander’s six-minute video of Penny holding Neely — including for 51 seconds after Neely’s body appears to go limp. Penny kept holding Neely despite witnesses pleading with him to “let him go!,” the video shows.
Dr. Cynthia Harris, who ruled that Neely’s death was a homicide caused by Penny’s chokehold, pointed out for jurors the exact moment when Neely passed out on the subway car’s floor — with Penny still wrapping his arm around Neely’s neck.
The city medical examiner, who made her ruling before Neely’s toxicology report came back, testified that she was so confident after watching video of the encounter that she’d stand by her decision even if it later turned out that Neely had enough drugs in his body “to put down an elephant.”
Jurors asked for a readback of that specific portion of Harris’ testimony during deliberations.
Trial evidence revealed that Neely had the synthetic marijuana drug K2 in his system at the time of the confrontation. Jurors also heard that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, telling doctors in 2021 that he’d heard the “devil’s voice.”
Penny’s mother, sister, friends and fellow Marines took the stand to vouch for his character.
The defense’s medical expert, forensic pathologist Dr. Satish Chundru, claimed that Neely died not from Penny’s chokehold, but by “the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana.”
Penny declined to take the stand. But jurors heard him tell arriving cops on the train platform, “I just put him out,” before making a choking gesture with his arms.
Hours later, at Chinatown’s 5th Precinct, a relaxed Penny insisted during an interrogation that he was merely trying to “de-escalate the situation” and that he didn’t mean to hurt Neely.
“I’m not trying to kill the guy,” the Marine veteran told two detectives, as prosecutors watched him through a one-sided mirror. “I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else.”
In an apparent reference to the mentally ill Neely, Penny added during his questioning that “all these people are pushing people in front of the train and stuff.”
Neely’s death, and Penny’s arrest 11 days later, sparked a national political firestorm about whether Penny’s actions were justified.
The episode also sparked outrage about how Neely fell through the cracks of the city’s mental health system, failing to get the treatment he needed despite the NYPD treating him as an “emotionally disturbed person” in more than two dozen prior encounters with him.
“This case is about a broken system, a broken system that does not help our mentally ill or
our unhoused,” Penny’s attorney Raiser said at the end of his closing statement.
“In fact, it is that broken system that led us, that is interwoven into the very fabric of this case.”
In a statement, the city council’s progressive caucus denounced the verdict, saying it “highlights the deep-seated [ck] societal discomfort with unhoused individuals.
