The jury in the chokehold case against Daniel Penny are deadlocked on the manslaughter charge.
Jurors sent a note Friday morning, stating, “We the jury request instructions from Judge [Maxwell] Wiley. At this time, we are unable to come to a unanimous vote on court 1 – manslaughter in the second degree.”
Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran and architecture student, was charged in the death of a mentally ill homeless man who threatened to kill people on a Manhattan subway car, Fox News reported.
The incident occurred in May 2023.
Prosecutors need to prove Penny was reckless when he put Jordan Neely, 30, in a chokehold for a guilty verdict in the manslaughter charge.
Neely, while high on drugs, went onto the subway and threatened to kill passengers while in a psychotic episode, trial testimony revealed.
Penny faces a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison if convicted on the manslaughter charge.
The judge said the jury can’t move on to decide the other charges until they come to an agreement on the manslaughter charge.
“In this case, I think that they can’t move on to count 2 unless they find the defendant not guilty of count 1,” Wiley said. “I have to at least try to ask the jury to find a verdict on count 1.”
Count two is criminally negligent homicide, which carries a maximum punishment of four years in prison.
He then drew up new instructions, which the attorneys reviewed.
Neely suffered from schizophrenia said on the subway that someone was going to “die today.”
That’s when Penny put him in the chokehold.
Neely, who later died, had an active arrest warrant against him. He was high on K2, a synthetic marijuana drug that acts as a stimulant.
