www.nbcnews.com
yeah, I just bet that would have made a huge difference to someone!
Seems like the DA overreached just a little!I agree with the juries decision.
Daniel Penny found not guilty in chokehold death of Jordan Neely
The jury acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide after previously deadlocking on the more serious charge of manslaughter.
The prosecution presented its best case, which clearly the jury found lacking. Better luck next time for Bragg.Make no mistake, Daniel Penny was acquitted this week of choking Jordan Neely to death on the New York City subway after his lawyers invoked some of the most institutionally insidious appeals to anti-Black racism around.
Penny’s defense lawyers and his legions of fans will say otherwise, of course. They’ll point out that Penny, a 26-year-old former marine, was merely protecting himself and his fellow passengers from Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man suffering from schizophrenia.
And they’ll argue that if race did matter in this trial, it was only Penny’s race that mattered. Penny’s attorneys (and the New York Post) vehemently objected when the prosecution described Penny, who is white, as “the white man”, as if pointing out the obvious was some underhanded masterpiece of racial guilt-tripping.
But don’t believe what the lawyers said, no matter how loud they said it. Believe what they did.
Penny’s defense team paid an expert witness, Dr Satish Chundru, nearly $100,000 to testify at the trial, which had a mostly white jury composed of seven women and five men.
By the time Chundru took the stand, the facts of Neely’s death were clear. Neely entered an uptown F train on 1 May 2023 and, clearly in distress, began yelling that he was hungry, thirsty and ready to go to jail.
Less than 30 seconds later, Penny had Neely in a chokehold called “the blood choke” that Penny’s own marine trainer testified was used improperly by the ex-marine. That specific chokehold will render a person unconscious after only 13 seconds, the Marine Corps martial arts instructor testified, at which point one should stop.
Penny held Neely in the chokehold for about six minutes, including a full 50 seconds after Neely had gone limp.
Both common sense and medical science would dictate precisely what the medical examiner found. Neely’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to Penny’s chokehold.
But that’s not what Dr Chundru determined. According to Chundru, Neely died of a mix of factors: his schizophrenia, drugs in his system, and the fact that he was a carrier of a genetic trait called sickle cell. “This is not a chokehold death,” Chundru testified.
And here’s the problem. Sickle cell trait is an inherited and normally asymptomatic blood condition that mostly means the person with the trait is simply a carrier of a specific gene.
I’m personally a carrier of a related condition called thalassemia. (Full-blown sickle cell disease requires two sickle cell genes, not just the one carried by those who have sickle cell trait.)
There is simply no good scientific evidence that the sickle cell trait plays any role in choking deaths. The American Society of Hematology even warns that deaths attributed to sickle cell crisis “must be viewed with profound skepticism”.
Now take a guess which population in the United States most often carries the sickle cell trait?
Upwards of 10% of African Americans are carriers of the gene, far and away more than any other population in this country (and more than 90% of those with full-blown sickle cell disease in the United States are Black people).
In 2021, the New York Times investigated the dubious practice of blaming the deaths of Black men at the hands of law enforcement on the sickle cell trait, finding at least 46 instances in what “was almost certainly an undercount”……
What findings of “excited delirium” and “sickle cell trait” both do is pathologize Black people, especially Black men, by turning their own bodies against them in a court of law. The news site Gothamist understood this in a report filed from Penny’s trial.
Penny’s lawyers, Gothamist reported, “argued that [Neely’s] own cells starved him of oxygen – not their client’s arm wrapped around his neck”.
I don’t know if the jury was swayed by Dr Chundru’s testimony. We’ll have to wait to hear directly from the jurors to know what transpired during their deliberations.
But what I do know is that, in 2021, lawyers representing Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, sought the same sickle cell trait defense in a motion to dismiss the case against their client. It didn’t work…….
What I do know is that, again unlike Derek Chauvin, Daniel Penny is a free man today, indicating a serious rightwing turn in how our juries and the public are assessing high-profile cases about the deaths of Black men like George Floyd and Jordan Neely.
What I do know is that Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on X.com “thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
And Rudy Giuliani posted: “A great act of justice by 12 fair New Yorkers rejecting the racist, unjust charges of Bragg, the Soros imposed DA. Daniel Penny is a hero and deserves a medal from NYC and [Donald Trump].”
And Kyle Rittenhouse, acquitted in 2021 of shooting three people at an anti-racist protest in Wisconsin (killing two), posted “Congratulations on your NOT GUILTY Daniel Penny!!!!” and “Self-defense is still alive in this country.”
What I do know is that an online Daniel Penny legal defense fund raised over $3m, including a $10,000 contribution from Vivek Ramaswamy and $5,000 from the musician Kid Rock.
What I do know is that Jordan Neely never physically touched anyone in that subway car, and that there’s a long history of white people killing Black people without due process in this country………
Daniel Penny’s lawyers used a racist defense strategy and it worked | Moustafa Bayoumi
To argue that it was sickle cell trait – a condition that disproportionately affects Black people – killed Jordan Neely is dangerous and wrongwww.theguardian.com
I don't suppose some folks will be able to accept the jury's decision.Make no mistake, Daniel Penny was acquitted this week of choking Jordan Neely to death on the New York City subway after his lawyers invoked some of the most institutionally insidious appeals to anti-Black racism around.
Penny’s defense lawyers and his legions of fans will say otherwise, of course. They’ll point out that Penny, a 26-year-old former marine, was merely protecting himself and his fellow passengers from Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man suffering from schizophrenia.
And they’ll argue that if race did matter in this trial, it was only Penny’s race that mattered. Penny’s attorneys (and the New York Post) vehemently objected when the prosecution described Penny, who is white, as “the white man”, as if pointing out the obvious was some underhanded masterpiece of racial guilt-tripping.
But don’t believe what the lawyers said, no matter how loud they said it. Believe what they did.
Penny’s defense team paid an expert witness, Dr Satish Chundru, nearly $100,000 to testify at the trial, which had a mostly white jury composed of seven women and five men.
By the time Chundru took the stand, the facts of Neely’s death were clear. Neely entered an uptown F train on 1 May 2023 and, clearly in distress, began yelling that he was hungry, thirsty and ready to go to jail.
Less than 30 seconds later, Penny had Neely in a chokehold called “the blood choke” that Penny’s own marine trainer testified was used improperly by the ex-marine. That specific chokehold will render a person unconscious after only 13 seconds, the Marine Corps martial arts instructor testified, at which point one should stop.
Penny held Neely in the chokehold for about six minutes, including a full 50 seconds after Neely had gone limp.
Both common sense and medical science would dictate precisely what the medical examiner found. Neely’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to Penny’s chokehold.
But that’s not what Dr Chundru determined. According to Chundru, Neely died of a mix of factors: his schizophrenia, drugs in his system, and the fact that he was a carrier of a genetic trait called sickle cell. “This is not a chokehold death,” Chundru testified.
And here’s the problem. Sickle cell trait is an inherited and normally asymptomatic blood condition that mostly means the person with the trait is simply a carrier of a specific gene.
I’m personally a carrier of a related condition called thalassemia. (Full-blown sickle cell disease requires two sickle cell genes, not just the one carried by those who have sickle cell trait.)
There is simply no good scientific evidence that the sickle cell trait plays any role in choking deaths. The American Society of Hematology even warns that deaths attributed to sickle cell crisis “must be viewed with profound skepticism”.
Now take a guess which population in the United States most often carries the sickle cell trait?
Upwards of 10% of African Americans are carriers of the gene, far and away more than any other population in this country (and more than 90% of those with full-blown sickle cell disease in the United States are Black people).
In 2021, the New York Times investigated the dubious practice of blaming the deaths of Black men at the hands of law enforcement on the sickle cell trait, finding at least 46 instances in what “was almost certainly an undercount”……
What findings of “excited delirium” and “sickle cell trait” both do is pathologize Black people, especially Black men, by turning their own bodies against them in a court of law. The news site Gothamist understood this in a report filed from Penny’s trial.
Penny’s lawyers, Gothamist reported, “argued that [Neely’s] own cells starved him of oxygen – not their client’s arm wrapped around his neck”.
I don’t know if the jury was swayed by Dr Chundru’s testimony. We’ll have to wait to hear directly from the jurors to know what transpired during their deliberations.
But what I do know is that, in 2021, lawyers representing Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, sought the same sickle cell trait defense in a motion to dismiss the case against their client. It didn’t work…….
What I do know is that, again unlike Derek Chauvin, Daniel Penny is a free man today, indicating a serious rightwing turn in how our juries and the public are assessing high-profile cases about the deaths of Black men like George Floyd and Jordan Neely.
What I do know is that Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on X.com “thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
And Rudy Giuliani posted: “A great act of justice by 12 fair New Yorkers rejecting the racist, unjust charges of Bragg, the Soros imposed DA. Daniel Penny is a hero and deserves a medal from NYC and [Donald Trump].”
And Kyle Rittenhouse, acquitted in 2021 of shooting three people at an anti-racist protest in Wisconsin (killing two), posted “Congratulations on your NOT GUILTY Daniel Penny!!!!” and “Self-defense is still alive in this country.”
What I do know is that an online Daniel Penny legal defense fund raised over $3m, including a $10,000 contribution from Vivek Ramaswamy and $5,000 from the musician Kid Rock.
What I do know is that Jordan Neely never physically touched anyone in that subway car, and that there’s a long history of white people killing Black people without due process in this country………
Daniel Penny’s lawyers used a racist defense strategy and it worked | Moustafa Bayoumi
To argue that it was sickle cell trait – a condition that disproportionately affects Black people – killed Jordan Neely is dangerous and wrong
Something tells me you don’t feel the same way about all of Trump’s verdicts
You might wish to stop listening to those little voices in your head, they are clearly steering you in the wrong direction!
www.independent.co.ukHow awesome!JD Vance invites Daniel Penny to weekend football game in Trump’s suite: Live updates
Military veteran who choked NYC subway rider was acquitted of homicide and has been invited to join Trump for Army-Navy football game
How expected.
Yes, i expected the jury to find in his favor.
wow white guy kills the black guy and gets away with it. that's like the norm in the us. He could have stopped choking him it he knew how to do it he would know its can be lethal.
I'll go with the jury which heard every bit of evidence. Figure their opinion is better informed than others'.
so you're saying he had to strangle the guy for six minutes????? that's the only way to restrain him?? bullshirt even the passengers were telling him to stop. Just because he got off does not mean he did not kill the guy wrongly.
He's right. It was an improper choke hold. The correct method is to grab the back of the shirt and place the first
The defense successfully appealed to the jury's fears, capitalizing on the discomfort and anxiety often felt when encountering a mentally unstable individual—particularly a mentally unstable Black man. Unfortunately, this dynamic has been reaffirmed time and again, with right-wing sources amplifying these fears, demonizing those who are different, and encouraging gun ownership as a response. If the individual in question had been a mentally challenged white man, the outcome might have been very different. At its core, this case reflects a pervasive fear: fear of those who look different and behave in ways society deems unexpected or unsettling.
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