Jurors In Daniel Penny Case Review Crucial Video Evidence In Ongoing Deliberations
No matter what side people were on regarding Daniel Penny’s guilt in the death of Jordan Neely, many believed a verdict would come quickly.
That hasn’t happened, and jurors are entering their second full day of deliberations on Thursday. Since deliberations began, the jurors have asked to review key pieces of evidence, including three videos tied to the case, Fox 5 New York reported.
Penny is charged with second-degree manslaughter and a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. Jurors can find him guilty of one of the charges, or acquit him of all charges.
On Wednesday, jurors asked to review body cam footage from police taken as they arrived at the scene after Penny placed Neely in a chokehold. Penny said he took action because Neely was threatening passengers on the New York City subway. They also asked to review the original video of the incident taken by another passenger, and the footage from Penny’s interrogation with police, where they didn’t tell him Neely had died.
Jurors also asked to review the cross-examination of New York medical examiner Dr. Cynthia Harris, who testified that she made the determination Neely died due to asphyxiation based on video alone – before the toxicology report came back.
In November, Penny’s defense attorneys questioned Harris why Neely’s death certificate originally listed the cause of death as pending further study. Harris said this was due to a misunderstanding from a police report that said Neely had been screaming while police were present. But, after viewing video of Penny restraining Neely in a chokehold and appearing unresponsive, Harris made her determination about the cause of death.
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Harris told the defense that even if Neely had enough fentanyl in his system to take out an elephant, she still would have ruled that he died from asphyxiation. The defense, however, was able to get her to agree that medical examiners can disagree on the cause of death and that it’s not a perfect science.
On Tuesday afternoon, less than an hour after deliberations began, jurors asked about the specifics of justification defenses from the judge’s instructions. To convict Penny, jurors need to agree that Penny’s chokehold on Neely was unjustifiable and that he acted recklessly.
The jurors were read that section of the judge’s instructions, deliberated for another hour and a half, and then went home for the day, The Daily Wire reported.
Also on Wednesday, Neely’s father filed a lawsuit against Penny for the death of his son, the New York Post reported, demanding “judgment awarding damages in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction.”