A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in the high-profile death. A Manhattan jury delivered the verdict, clearing Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely's death last year, per the AP. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed earlier in deliberations because the jury deadlocked on that count. Both charges were felonies and carried the possibility of prison time. Penny, 26, gripped Jordan Neely around the neck for about six minutes in a chokehold that other subway passengers partially captured on video.
Penny's lawyers said he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from a volatile, mentally ill man who was making alarming remarks and gestures. The defense also disputed a city medical examiner's finding that the chokehold killed Neely. Prosecutors said Penny reacted far too forcefully. The verdict capped a trial that took a tumultuous turn last Friday, when jurors said they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict on the manslaughter charge. The judge then dismissed it at prosecutors' request—a rare one for prosecutors to make in the thick of a trial.
Penny served four years in the Marines and went on to study architecture. Neely, 30, was a sometime subway performer with a tragic life story: His mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase when he was a teenager. As a younger man, Neely did Michael Jackson tributes—complete with moonwalks—on the city's streets and subways, building a reputation among the artist's fans and impersonators. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her. The case amplified many American fault lines, among them race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness, and homelessness. Neely was Black. Penny is white.
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