NEW YORK—Dr. Cynthia Harris, a New York City medical examiner, took the stand on Nov. 15 in the trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine who put Jordan Neely in a hold and held him down, and stated that she blamed Penny’s chokehold, not the powerful drugs she found in Neely’s system, for the man’s death.
Harris suggested that a powerful intoxicant played a role in making Neely hyper-aggressive before the May 1, 2023, encounter on the F train began, but went on to state she had no doubt that Neely died as a result of the pressure exerted on his neck and the cutoff of oxygen to his brain.
Harris was candid about her finding that Neely had synthetic cannabinoids in his system at the time of the incident, and she called the drugs “more potent than marijuana.”
“As a class of drugs, they fall under the category of a stimulant. They rev the body up, they activate the system, so they fall into the same class of drugs as, say, cocaine,” Harris stated.
But, on Friday, the prosecution elicited testimony that is likely to figure in its closing arguments about responsibility for Neely’s death.
“Is it your opinion that, if Mr. Neely’s neck was not compressed, he would not have died?” asked prosecutor Dafna Yoran.
“Yes,” Harris replied.
On the stand on Nov. 15, Harris said that toxicology tests, of the kind that she performed on Neely, are standard practice in a forensic setting and involve taking blood, urine, and fluid from the eyes and submitting them for forensic analysis that might turn up any chemical compounds.
“In this case, we found in the blood a synthetic cannabinoid,” she said.
Harris stated that such drugs, commonly known as K-2 or “spice,” are not as widely known or studied as familiar intoxicants like heroin or cocaine.
Nevertheless, she said, they are “constantly being synthesized” by various labs.
Having revealed this finding, Harris made clear that offering any specifics about Neely’s use of the drug was not possible.
“I can only tell you that it’s present, I can’t tell you when he took it into his system, just that it was in his system,” she said.
After discussing these aspects of the forensic examination of Neely’s body, Harris went on to express her conviction that Neely would not have died without the hold placed and kept around his neck.
With the aid of diagrams of the neck and brain, along with videos taken at the scene of the May 2023 incident, Harris set forth her analysis of what she believed happened to Neely while Penny had him in a grip from behind.
Harris said that compression of the neck, which she believes occurred when Penny put Neely in a chokehold from behind, can cause vascular compromise as well as airway compromise.
This results in “a low-oxygen state for the brain to be at,” she said.
“That alone is sufficient to cause death,” Harris continued.
The examiner described the brain as the organ of the human body most sensitive about needing oxygen and said that the cutoff of oxygen to the body will cause the brain to die first.
This explains why, in cases of hanging, drowning, and choking, it is not unheard of for the heart still to have a pulse after brain death has occurred.
This reality is what makes organ donation possible, she said. Because the life of the brain and that of other organs are not necessarily aligned, doctors can extract living organs from dead people and transfer them to living patients.
Harris said, “I find it entirely consistent with an asphyxial death.”
“It involves compromise of the blood vessels, it involves compromise and occlusion to the airway, and it involves, by virtue of occlusion to the airway, a sickle cell event” in Neely’s body, she added.
“The sickle cells are unable to deliver,” Harris said, stipulating that the sickling she believes occurred here was a mechanism rather than a cause of death.
The trial resumes next week with further testimony.
