Daniel Penny’s acquittal on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely is unlikely to foster a more tolerant climate for citizens who seek to protect others in danger, although it may have consequences for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against him, legal experts told The Epoch Times.
The Dec. 9 verdict in the trial, which began with jury selection at the end of October before continuing through November and well into December, sparked highly emotional reactions from both supporters of Penny and sympathizers with Neely, the homeless man who died after Penny restrained him during an incident on a Manhattan subway last year.
Just before 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 9, a jury foreperson announced that the jury had reached a unanimous verdict to acquit Neely on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. The judge dismissed the second-degree manslaughter charge on Dec. 6 after the jury had deliberated for four days and could not come to a unanimous vote.
Penny’s supporters are pleased that he will not face jail time for taking swift action to restrain Neely—who had drugs in his system and a record of arrests for violent crimes—when Neely threatened to harm passengers on the train.
Neely’s friends, family, and sympathizers have maintained that Penny should have faced legal consequences for keeping Neely restrained for about six minutes, which they argue caused an asphyxial death.
Bragg to Face Fallout?
The jury’s decision in the high-profile case is not surprising, according to Michael Alcazar, a criminal justice professor at the City University of New York in Manhattan.
“Given the current climate of crime and conditions in New York City, I’m not surprised by the verdict in the Penny trial,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Many New Yorkers might see themselves or their loved ones in the Daniel Penny trial. The case touches on significant issues like public safety, self-defense, and the challenges of living in the city.”
Alcazar does not find it unusual for the jury to have come to a unanimous vote on the criminally negligent homicide charge after its deadlock on a related but more serious manslaughter charge.
He said this is because the two charges related to the same actions on the part of the defendant placed different evidentiary burdens on prosecutors.
In other words, government lawyers could not prove both charges through the same evidence or legal standards, Alcazar said.
He said that, in his view, following the acquittal, Bragg’s decision to prosecute Penny will now face all the more acute scrutiny.
“A hung jury or acquittal can lead to public scrutiny and criticism. ... The specific repercussions will depend on several factors, including public sentiment, media coverage, and the broader political climate in New York,” Alcazar said.
Penny’s lawyers argued during their summation that the government sought to use Penny as a scapegoat for what they depicted as the city’s own failures to protect the public and keep order and said the prosecution had political motives.
The Future of Self-Defense
The farthest-reaching implications of the case have to do with the willingness of citizens to step in and take action to protect others from violent and criminal behavior, according to Harvey Kushner, chair of the criminal justice department at Long Island University in Brookville, New York.Even though Penny was not convicted, people who might otherwise be willing to act as “Good Samaritans” will have reservations about taking any action that might land them in legal trouble for months and incur tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, according to Kushner.
Kushner said the effect on people in future situations on the subway or in other settings in which someone is in danger is not hard to predict.
“In terms of the concept of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ for people actually on the subway, this puts a damper on it. Penny still has to go through a civil suit, and even at the press conference I saw [after the verdict], the Black Lives Matter and other agitators really threatened him. This is serious,” he said.
“Penny should not have been charged in the first place, and if you look at the whole situation and the videos of what happened, it’s a travesty.”
He said the deterrent effect on prospective “Good Samaritans” in the future will be all the more pervasive because of the widespread, 24/7 coverage that the Penny case has received in New York City and beyond, citing television coverage, TikTok, and social media platform X as near-constant purveyors of news and commentary on the case.
Kushner said he sets the Penny case apart from others involving alleged vigilantes, such as the case of Bernhard Goetz, who in December 1984 shot four young black men whom he believed were trying to rob him on a Manhattan subway. Although the Goetz case drew wide attention, sparked highly emotional reactions, and fueled debate about self-defense and race, much as the Penny case has done, Kushner does not view the cases as equivalent, partly because social media was not ubiquitous in 1984.
“If you look back, historically, there was that Goetz case on the subway all those years ago. You might have had one of these cases in past decades, but it wasn’t known to as wide a number of people,” he said.
“Now, the ‘Good Samaritans’ are going to step back and say, ‘Wait, should I get involved with this?’”
Bragg’s office did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
