A Manhattan prosecutor admitted Friday that it may be hard for jurors to convict former Marine Daniel Penny of “recklessly” choking mentally ill subway busker Jordan Neely to death on a crowded train.
“This is not an easy case… of a bad man doing a bad thing,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran told a group of 16 prospective jurors who may be chosen to decide if Penny is guilty of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 caught-on-camera killing.
Penny, 25, craned his neck and stared at the potential panelists as Yoran explained that prosecutors won’t argue that he intended to kill Neely, 30, when he placed him in a chokehold for more than six minutes on a northbound F train as it approached the Broadway-Lafayette station.
“It’s not easy finding someone guilty of killing somebody when you know they didn’t mean it,” Yoran said during the fifth day of jury selection in Manhattan Supreme Court.