Daniel Penny trial spotlighted issues of homelessness, mental illness: Experts

Legal experts told ABC News they believe the Daniel Penny trial tapped into societal concerns regarding homelessness, severe mental illness, safety and race following the acquittal of Penny in the NYC subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.

“Daniel Penny bought himself a great defense team by raising millions of dollars online, and it’s no big mystery how he tapped into so much support," said trial lawyer and noted civil rights attorney Adanté Pointer. "People are fed up with the way our society fails to address mental illness and places that duty on an average citizen, which is what Penny was when he found himself confronted with Neely on that subway car. It’s a societal problem that Penny was forced to deal with, without society’s resources."

Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, put Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, in a minuteslong chokehold after Neely boarded an uptown F train yelling and acting erratically in May 2023, according to officials. The city medical examiner declared the chokehold to be the cause of Neely's death.

The prosecution argued that Penny's initial intentions were "laudable," but he held on too long: "Daniel Penny, the defendant, could have easily restrained Jordan Neely without choking him to death," prosecutor Dafna Yoran said in her closing argument.

About 30 seconds after Penny put Neely in the chokehold, the train arrived at the next station and many passengers left the train car, according to court filings. Yoran called Neely's death "so tragically unnecessary," challenging the defense assertion that Neely posed a threat to passengers even after he had been subdued on the subway floor for several minutes.

Penny pleaded not guilty to both charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The manslaughter charge was dropped after the jury said they could not come to a unanimous decision. He was found not guilty of the homicide charge.

Anna G. Cominsky, law professor and managing attorney of New York Law School Legal Services, Inc., said the trial poses a question to the city about how to address the concerns that arose during the trial.

"The acquittal is the small piece of this," Cominsky said. "We really want to think about: could this death have been prevented? And part of the answer to that is it may very well could have, because we need to think about the services that we're providing to our unhoused population. We need to think about the services that we're providing to individuals who have severe mental health issues, and those are the things that ultimately led up to this tragedy."

Pace University Law School professor and renowned legal expert Bennett Gershman said the subway acted as a "silent witness" in the case, tapping into the tensions surrounding crime on public transit.

"This was a very, almost impossible charge to win, with a New York group of New Yorkers sitting on a jury, knowing what it's like in the subway system, knowing that there are people on the subways who do potentially cause trouble" Gershman said. "In this case, there happened to be an individual who interfered with what might have been harm to other people, he stopped what he thought would occur. And to some people, he's a hero. To a lot of people, he's a villain. But, you know, we're dealing with the criminal justice system. We're not dealing with morality."

Penny has garnered support nationwide following the incident, as his legal defense fundraiser continues to grow with the acquittal garnering more than $3.2 million in donations pouring in since Neely's death.

Pointer noted that the trial also had racial implications for some protesters, who have argued that bias may have played a factor in the perception of Neely as a threat, stoking questions about implicit bias.

“In our society, Black people are routinely portrayed as a threat which taints our collective perception of reality and leads to verdicts where the use of deadly force is believed to be justified when the objective evidence proves none was warranted," Pointer said. "Our society has become too comfortable with the idea that a Black life can be taken with less than good justification."

The law firm that represented Penny issued a statement this afternoon following his acquittal, saying: “We couldn’t be more pleased that a jury of Danny’s peers acquitted him of any wrongdoing. And now New Yorkers can take some comfort in knowing that we can continue to stand up for one another without sacrificing our rights or our freedom."

Protests during the trial

Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, who has protested regularly throughout the Penny trial has criticized the verdict in a call with ABC News. He said that he'll pursue justice by giving back to those in his community who need support.

"If our people are hungry, we have to feed them. If we have problems with the schools in our communities, we have to create new schools," Newsome said. "The call for from the Neely family is to go out and carry out acts of unity in the Black community."

Local activist group VOCAL-NY criticized state and local officials, arguing that issues of violence against homeless people -- who are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators -- remains unsolved. The group is following the verdict by calling for increased services and care for those like Neely experiencing homelessness or severe mental illness.

"The conditions that led to Jordan Neely’s death are the same today as they were then, if not worse," the group said in a statement to ABC News. "No trial or court process will change that. Solutions do exist, though the political will to enact them is failing both at the state and city level."

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect Penny's correct age.