Jurors Set to Weigh Penny’s Fate in Choking Case That Divided New York
The New York Times
Prosecutors in Daniel Penny’s manslaughter trial finished closing arguments Tuesday. The trial has touched on fears about crime and the city’s failure to help its most troubled residents.
After a seven-week trial and the testimony of more than 40 witnesses, a Manhattan jury will settle a debate that for more than a year has divided New Yorkers: whether Daniel Penny, a former Marine who fatally choked a homeless man in a subway car last year, is guilty of manslaughter.
Prosecutors finished their closing arguments on Tuesday in the crowded and stuffy Manhattan courtroom where the dramatic trial has unfolded. A day earlier, the defense lawyers made their final appeal, trying to persuade the jury that their client should not be punished for the death of the man, Jordan Neely.
After the judge overseeing the case, Maxwell T. Wiley, gave the jurors instructions on Tuesday afternoon, they retreated behind closed doors to deliberate.
One of Mr. Penny’s lawyers tried to leave the jury with the image of his client as a protector. “The government is scapegoating the one man who was willing to stand up at the moment he was needed,” said the lawyer, Steven Raiser.
But Dafna Yoran, an assistant district attorney, said that Mr. Penny had killed Mr. Neely “recklessly and unjustifiably,” and asked the jury in the final minutes of her summation on Tuesday to “hold the defendant accountable.”
Mr. Penny “was given all of the signs he needed to stop,” Ms. Yoran said, referencing her step-by-step review of the medical examiner’s testimony about what happened to Mr. Neely’s body in his final moments.
Daniel Penny was charged with manslaughter in the choking death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was shouting in a subway car, last year.
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