Any Opinions on Penny/Nearly Verdict?
 

I find it a little odd that everybody on PC is keeping mum on this controversial topic. Indeed, a search for "Penny" apparently yields nothing except for references to the coin.

Anybody got an opinion or comment?

Sorry, that should read "Penny/Neely". Friggin' autocorrect. I tried to delete and re-post, but evidently this function no longer exists?

Regardless, I'm still curious about what y'all think.

I have absolutely no idea who or what the Penny verdict is, but I´m in Germany , so....

What do you think. What is your opinion?

Basic situation;

A homeless guy in a bad mental state of mind was on a NY train, having an emotional episode and harassing/threatening the fellow passengers. A man by the last name of Penny, a former US Marine, put the guy in a headlock to restrain him. The guy ended up dead, from what was alternately reported as suffocation/ accute synthetic marijuana toxicity, depending on which news outlet one chose to read. A trial ultimately acquitted Mr. Penny of all charges related to the death. MUCH was made of the fact that Mr. Penny is white and Mr. Neely was black, even though I personally believe race had NOTHING to do with this situation; I honestly believe had Mr. Neely been white or Mr. Penny been black, the situation would have been no different/ one man attempting to protect his fellow passengers from the threat posed by another man........

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/09/us/da...ial/index.html


A Manhattan jury found Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide Monday in the death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway last year.

Penny also previously faced a more serious second-degree manslaughter charge, but Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed it Friday at the request of prosecutors after jurors twice told the court they could not come to a verdict on the count.

Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, would have faced up to four years in prison for a criminally negligent homicide conviction and up to 15 years for a manslaughter conviction.

There was applause in the courtroom as the not-guilty verdict was read aloud. Penny locked eyes with members of the jury that acquitted him, nodding in thanks. A smile was visible on his face.

“For over 18 months our client has lived under the weight of a criminal indictment, all the while guilty of nothing more than trying to protect his fellow New Yorkers from a psychotic madman with a history of violence,” Penny’s attorney Tom Kenniff said in a statement Monday. “Today the Manhattan Jury has spoken, and the misguided prosecution of Daniel Penny will go down as a sad chapter in the history of New York criminal justice.”

Neely’s father, who was present in the courtroom for the verdict, was escorted out of the courtroom after an audible outburst with expletives.

The jury deliberated for just over an hour Monday on the criminally negligent homicide charge. On the second-degree manslaughter charge, they deliberated for 16 hours last week before telling the judge they were deadlocked, and another three hours Friday before saying they were deadlocked again.

The case stems from the death of Neely, a 30-year-old street artist who struggled with homelessness, mental illness and drugs, on a subway car on May 1, 2023.

Neely entered the subway car and began acting erratically, as he threw down his jacket and yelled at passengers that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care whether he died, witnesses said. Penny, a passenger, grabbed Neely from behind in a chokehold, forced him to the train floor and restrained him there for several minutes. When Penny let go of the hold, Neely was nonresponsive. He was later declared dead.

Several minutes of the chokehold were captured on bystander video that spread widely and has been played repeatedly in court during the trial.



The case has polarized city residents, many of whom have personal experiences with disorder on the subways, and raised broader questions about mental health, race relations and the line between protector and vigilante. Black Lives Matter protesters have added Neely’s name to its roll call of victims – including just outside the courthouse – while others have praised Penny for trying to protect others.

Prosecutors said Penny acted recklessly and negligently by restraining Neely in a chokehold for so long, even after Neely stopped moving. “We are here today because the defendant used way too much force for way too long in way too reckless of a manner,” prosecutor Dafna Yoran said in closing arguments.

His defense has said he was acting to protect others from a threat.

“I wasn’t trying to injure him,” Penny said in an interview with NYPD investigators shortly after the incident. “I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else. He was threatening.”

Penny’s defense attorneys also challenged the medical examiner’s determination Neely died from the chokehold and suggested the charges were brought because of “a rush to judgment based on something other than medical science.”

What happened at the trial
The trial began with jury selection in late October and featured testimony, video and 911 calls from subway riders, responding police officers and martial arts and medical experts.

The prosecution called more than 30 witnesses to the stand, including one man who helped restrain Neely’s arms during the struggle and testified he advised Penny to loosen his grip. “I’m going to grab his hands so you can let go,” Eric Gonzalez told Penny, according to his testimony.

However, Gonzalez could be heard in video footage of the incident saying Penny wasn’t “squeezing” Neely’s neck in the 51 seconds before he released the chokehold. Gonzalez also testified he initially lied to investigators about what he saw and did on the subway out of fear he would be “pinned” for the killing. Prosecutors promised not to charge him in the case, he testified.


Several subway riders testified they were terrified Neely was going to attack and they were relieved when Penny put him in a chokehold and kept him there.

“Restraining him for the moment was a relief, but if he would have gotten up, he would have done what he would have done,” subway rider Caedryn Schrunk said.

The defense’s case focused on emphasizing Neely’s threatening behavior, character witnesses from Penny’s time in the US Marines and challenges to the medical cause of Neely’s death.

Penny served four years in the Marines as a sergeant, from 2017 to 2021, with his last duty assignment at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to military records.

The city medical examiner who performed Neely’s autopsy, testifying for the prosecution, ruled the cause of his death was “compression of neck (chokehold).” She made the determination after performing an autopsy and watching the cell phone video on the subway but did not wait for the toxicology report, she testified.

The defense presented its own medical expert who said Neely died of a combination of factors, including a sickling crisis linked to his sickle cell trait, a schizophrenic episode, the struggle and restraint by Penny and K2 intoxication.

Glad you asked. My gut is that Neely could have been subdued without killing him. I think, given the available assistance, Penny got a little overzealous. Not sure it amounts to negligent homicide and I hasten to add that I wasn't there. The jury probably learned a lot more about this case than I ever will, and they elected to let Penny walk, so there's that.

I know the circumstances differed, but I'm having a hard time understanding why this case hasn't generated even a tenth of the outrage that George Floyd's did.

What do YOU think?

I have sympathy for Penny. However this is colored by my own experience. Two times I stepped out in the public. The first to reason with a mob that was about to beat to death a homosexual. It was a reflex action. It was not something I reasoned out...what if the mob had also turned on me for being sympathetic to a homosexual?
The second one I tried to calm down an obviously deranged person who was menacing the public with a pair of scissors. This was a premeditated act on my path and there was no other member of the public who was willing to do so. This was at the entrance of a subway station in NYC.

The subway system in NYC is plagued with many mentally disturbed, violent people. It is not easy for a private citizen to step forward to counter them.

George is in no way comparable to Neely. Much more is expected from trained, public servants.

I know little of this case. The verdict, to me, smacks of jury nullification reflecting public frustation with disorderly mentally ill, who can seem most intolerable in the confines of public transportation vehicles. But I'd want to know the evidence in detail to make a jury-like judgement on the threat posed by Neely and all the circumstances of the response. Did Neely have a weapon? Had Neely actually assaulted anyone? An intervention that kills him based less on objective threat and more on subjective fear and loathing would strike me as criminal, at least at the negligent homicide level.

A decent society would handle these individuals better, both in having more compassionate trained personnel available to respond to such incidents, and in having all other things done that a kind society could do to have people's needs met, so occasions of disorder in subway cars happen much less frequently.

This from a current essay in the Atlantic, from executive editor Adrienne LaFrance, seems related:

The essay is more focused on the danger of political and state violence. But tolerance of violence against a mentally-ill person may reflect the 'brutalization' of society the essay warns about.

It (tolerance of violence) may also reflect the prevalence of the mentally disturbed in the public space.

You did see my post #8, above?

Well, yes. Yes sir he did;

(from the news story I quoted in my previous post)


"Neely entered the subway car and began acting erratically, as he threw down his jacket and yelled at passengers that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care whether he died"


https://www.vindicatelaw.com/blog/as...ferent-crimes/

"Assault Definition
The legal definition of assault is an intentional act that gives another person reasonable fear that they’ll be physically harmed or offensively touched.

No physical contact or injury has to actually occur, but the accused person must have intentionally acted in a way to cause that fear."

Interesting definition!

Well, a lawyer wrote it, so ...

Yes, and now duly note that you had mentioned said occurrence in the public space.

Is a physical response that results in death reasonable and proportionate to an assault that does not include physical contact or injury? The jury concluded it was, possibly influenced by conflicting testimony on the cause of death. Without the benefit of all the evidence, I cannot answer the question.

Well, they are comparable -- same basic crime, just a difference of circumstance and degree. Neely was an active threat and Floyd wasn't. Chauvin was a cop and Penny isn't. Six minutes versus nine and change.

Otherwise, pretty similar.

I don't necessarily agree that Chauvin should be held to a higher standard than Penny because he's a cop. Having the common decency not to kill somebody when they're already rendered helpless seems like a fairly low bar to me.

Doesn't sound like he was much of a physical threat to other passengers, definitely could have been handled better for all concerned.

I've seen worse and been in a public space and ready to intervene if need be, but the need was not justified and no physical violence ensued.

I don't think he needed to kill the guy to subdue him. Not happy with the verdict, personally.

And now:

Vice President-elect JD Vance has invited Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted in the chokehold death of a fellow New York subway rider, to be his guest Saturday at the annual Army-Navy football game.

“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote on X. “I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...ootball-trump/

MAGA sure seems to have a thing for vigilante justice.

I have only heard of this case here, and from what I have read, wouldn´t one notice if you have a guy in a choke hold that he´s going limp? Then you loosen your hold a bit, but are ready to clamp down again, if necessary.

The situation seems similar to some armed citizens just waiting for the chance to blow some guy away who is trying to rob a place. I´m not saying that it´s not ok to try and stop some guy robbing a place, but I think some are just waiting for the chance to legally kill someone.

I´m glad that society here in Germany generally isn´t so aggressive/dangerous/armed to the teeth. Sure, violent crimes happen here, too, but on a much smaller scale.

Yep, if you off colored people or lefties, you're their boy.

They are usually just after your TV ect' Here It's about appropriated force, down here that guy would have gone to jail for a long time. Not somewhere I'd live, or even visit. A while ago an innocent Australian woman was shot and killed by a Police officer over there because she approached a police car in her nighty after calling them to report a disturbance.

Maybe if a former Marine was on THIS train the woman might still be alive? :rolleyes:


https://www.yahoo.com/news/female-pa...190713491.html

40 years later, maybe we need to deputize someone like Bernie Goetz to clean up the NY subway once and for all..... (Sarcastic, I know, but tough shit, some assholes just NEED to be removed from society. Were I a juror, I wouldn't have convicted Penny or Goetz either....)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_N...ubway_shooting

Foo. You can prove anything with what-if speculations. It's called making-up evidence.

The lady is dead, and the guy who burned her to death got arrested.

Nothing made up there ;)

Or perhaps she simply spontaneously combusted :rolleyes:

I'd have no problem seeing the death penalty applied to the killer here.

maybe even in a big ol BONFIRE :)

The made-up part, of course, is the first sentence.

I get that you and many people have this death-wish triggered by outrageous crime stories. I think it's instinctive, and I think there are often bad outcomes to indulging these feelings. Basically, I don't want the state having power to kill because people like you want it too much.

Prove the guy 100% guilty, no shadow of a doubt or "circumstantial" evidence, directly and unmistakenly guilty, and yeah, then I'll have no problem with the State frying his ass.

Anything less than 100% airtight evidence, then yeah, no firing squad.

It does appear that in this case, there is enough video evidence supporting a guilty conviction.......

Kinda like the assholes who go into a McDonald's or a school with an AK-47 and mow down dozens of people, simply prove ya got the right perp, NO MISTAKES, 100% proven to be the person who did it, and yeah, I'm perfectly comfortable with the ultimate punishment being administered.

And no Don, I'm not "MAGA", or even slightly Republican for that matter, as I'm sure your just itchin to peg me for, just someone who believes Hammurabi got it right back in 1750 BC ;)

Got any more to say about "People like me" , , , , , Don?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi


"The Code of Hammurabi was a set of 282 laws written by the Babylonian king Hammurabi around 1750 BCE. It was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes in history. The code covered a wide range of topics, including:
Criminal law: The code included severe punishments, sometimes even death, for criminals.
Family law: The code granted women rights, such as the ability to inherit property.
Economic law: The code established standards for commercial interactions.
Labor law: The code outlined minimum wages for different jobs, such as artisans, laborers, and sailors.
Building code: The code outlined liability if a building collapsed.
Medical law: The code included provisions for injuries sustained during medical operations."

I'm against the death penalty, if it leads even one person to their death who is not guilty It's a crime no less heinous than that they are accused of.

Amen to that.

OK, "people like you" was a bad phrase to use, made it too personal, and triggers you to 'defend the tribe', as well as what we were talking about. So apologies for that mistake. What I meant by 'people like you' was others, and there are many many others, who think it's great to pepper their conversation with talk of "big ol BONFIRES," "frying his ass," etc. BTW, I did not say maga above, or think of you as maga. I don't kick maga people around for fun, if they are too far gone I generally put them on ignore. So no itch to scratch on my part.

As for the Code of Hammurabi, is the point to show that the death penalty existed way back then? I said this lust to do violence to scary criminals is instinctive. So of course it shows up in old law. The older, the more, I'd figure.

Hence, , , this......;)

I'm not here to change any minds on the death penalty, or anything else for that matter. People's long held beliefs aren't gonna be changed as the result of an internet discussion with what amounts to a stranger. I've said my piece on both the Penny verdict and the death penalty. Thank You for listening ;)

Would you define "Beyond any reasonable doubt" as 100%?
As this is the current standard.

Let's take this one step further, who are the folks (peers) that constitute the jury and how they are 'selected'. Biggest difficulty with any high profile trial is find 12 impartial jurors.

Our trial-by-jury system is our best shot at divising a fair way to find the truth and make just descisions of guilt or innocence, but it's far from infallible. I don't think it's good enough to trust with the power of capital punishment, no matter how much bad crimes make people really really want it.

Agreed, just like Democracy is the best form of government we know. But in the judgement by peers judicial system, some one can be adjudged not guilty in one jurisdiction yet hung in another.

I sent this to someone at AK as a PM a long time ago, concerning "A jury of one´s peers":

"I understand the thought of a "jury of one´s peers"; that is, to keep a corrupt judge or judicial system from imprisoning people at will. BUT, I sure would not want a bunch of "my peers" to decide over my fate. Do you realize how incredibly STUPID the average person is?

I MUCH prefer the system here; no jurys, just a panel of fair judges. We even have a thing called Schöffen. That´s a normal citizen that sits up there with the judges, and decides with them."

The Founding Fathers settled on a system that originated with the Magna Carta in 1215. It's actually served us pretty well. A defendant here can always waive a jury and opt for a bench trial (by a judge).