Daniel Penny’s lawyers move for mistrial, accuse Manhattan DA of pushing ‘white vigilante’ narrative

MANHATTAN (CN) — Lawyers for Daniel Penny, the man on trial for manslaughter after he choked an erratic Jordan Neely to death on a Manhattan subway last year, argued unsuccessfully for a mistrial Thursday, claiming prosecutors elicited testimony that made Penny seem like a “white vigilante.”

The spirited motion, made in open court, came after the judge allowed prosecutors to ask a police officer on the witness stand about a conversation Penny had with another officer, with whom Penny bonded over having served in the U.S. Marines.

Penny’s defense attorney, Thomas Kenniff, argued the conversation made Penny seem like a wannabe cop who took justice into his own hands that day on the train.

“There is no longer a way my client can get anything resembling a fair trial at this point,” Kenniff said.

Calling Neely an “unhinged nutjob,” Kenniff also complained that prosecutors failed to correct a witness who repeatedly referred to Penny as a “murderer,” or another who referred to Penny only as “the white man.”

Additionally, the defense attorney lambasted prosecutor Danfa Yoran’s opening statement, when she stated that Penny “didn’t recognize Mr. Neely’s humanity” as he wrapped his arms around Neely’s neck. Kenniff said Thursday that Yoran was “clearly” invoking race with that remark; Penny is white, and Neely was Black.

New York Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley denied the motion, but conceded, “I see what you’re getting at.”

Prosecutors say Penny went “way too far” in his bid to subdue Neely, who was 30 years old when he boarded Penny’s subway car on May 1, 2023.

Witnesses say Neely intimidated other passengers when he started shouting manically about his homelessness and making threats as soon as he got on the train. That’s when Penny came up from behind Neely, placed him in a chokehold and held Neely on the ground for around six minutes.

Video played for the jury shows Neely completely limp when Penny let go of the hold. Neely was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The city’s medical examiner ruled his cause of death was compression of the neck.

The incident has divided the country, with Penny being propped up in certain circles as a good Samaritan who protected his fellow straphangers, while others see his actions as an unnecessary act of racist vigilantism.

It has also divided the trial’s witnesses. A pair of subway riders recalled Penny’s behavior vastly differently when they testified back-to-back on Thursday.

Caedryn Schrunk — a middle-aged woman working for Nike, originally from the Midwest — told the jury that she thought she “was going to die” when Neely started shouting on her train car.

Schrunk recalled Neely yelling, “‘I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if you die. Kill me. Lock me up. I don’t care if I go to jail for life.’”

“It was like a Satanic belief,” Schrunk said.

Although Neely had no weapons, Scrhunk said she thought he was ”most likely armed based on the threats he was saying.”

She admitted that Neely made no physical contact with anyone, nor did he approach anyone in particular as he shouted.

“This was the first time in my life where I took a moment, because I thought that I was going to die in this situation,” Scrhunk said, prompting jeers from the gallery of Neely’s friends and family.

When Penny sprung into action, Schrunk said she was relieved that someone had come to the defense of her fellow passengers. She testified that it didn’t look like Penny was trying to harm Neely, that it didn’t look like he was squeezing Neely’s neck and that she had no idea Neely would die after the confrontation.

“I had no belief that that was going to be the outcome,” she said.

Johnny Grima told another story.

Grima, a Bronx homeless activist who said he’s struggled with housing insecurity in the past, was further down the train in a different car when Penny first grabbed Neely. He said he stumbled onto the scene when he got off the subway at the Broadway-Lafayette station in Manhattan and saw Penny choking Neely.

“Finally, he did let him go and Jordan Neely fell to the ground limply,” Grima said.

Disturbed by Neely’s motionless state, Grima said he grabbed his water bottle and tried to pour some of it onto Neely’s head to wake him up. Penny told him to stop, Grima testified.

“I didn’t like him,” Grima said of Penny. “It’s something like — you know when you have an abuser abusing someone, and they’re not trying to let anyone near the abused? The guy who’s choking him out won’t let anyone near? That’s weird. That’s wrong.”

Grima chided Penny for his handling of Neely’s limp body after the fact, claiming that Penny “flung his limbs around a bunch of times” with “disregard” as he positioned Neely before police arrived.

“I’ll be honest with you, he played with his dead body a bunch of times,” Grima said.

Trial is expected to run through mid-December. Penny faces charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

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