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Daniel Penny’s lawyer questions whether chokehold caused Jordan Neely’s NYC subway death
By
Samantha Max
Published Nov 18, 2024
Modified Nov 18, 2024
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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Samantha Max
Published Nov 18, 2024
Modified Nov 18, 2024
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In an hours-long cross-examination, Daniel Penny’s defense attorney questioned whether it was actually his client’s chokehold, and not another factor, that caused Jordan Neely’s death.
Medical examiner Cynthia Harris ruled Neely’s May 2023 death a homicide by compression of his neck, due to the chokehold Penny placed him in on the floor of an uptown F train. On Friday, she testified that the chokehold provided the only reasonable explanation for Neely’s death.
She said once she watched a cell phone recording that showed Penny with his arm around Neely’s neck for several minutes, followed by Neely’s limp body on the floor of the train, no drug or gene testing could have changed her mind.
But during a lengthy cross-examination that started Friday and continued into Monday, defense lawyer Steven Raiser questioned her findings. He offered other possible causes of death, like a drug overdose or a genetic defect. He also asked about a promotion Harris received shortly after working on the high-profile case. Harris said she was a fellow when she performed the autopsy and was promoted after passing her board examination.
Harris repeatedly said she still thinks the chokehold was the most probable cause of Neely’s death.
“That chokehold for that amount of time would have killed anyone,” she said.
Penny is standing trial in Manhattan on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. On May 1, 2023, he was riding the subway to the gym when Neely boarded and started yelling threats, he told detectives that afternoon. Penny wrapped his arm around Neely’s neck, took him to the ground and continued to hold him for about six minutes, according to evidence presented at trial. Neely was pronounced dead soon after.
Penny’s lawyers argue he was acting to protect himself and other subway riders. Prosecutors say he should have known the chokehold could have killed Neely.
Over the course of about five hours, Raiser asked detailed questions about Harris’ autopsy of Neely, including what she observed, who she conferred with, what tests she ordered and how she determined the cause of death. Raiser peppered his questions with a mix of medical and military jargon. Harris frequently asked him to repeat his questions, which he often asked quickly, at times while she was still responding to his prior inquiry. She responded with her own extensive vocabulary of medical terminology, explaining in detail different bodily processes and how they may or may not have factored into Neely’s death.
The cross examination was punctuated with some moments of levity. As Harris was listing different factors that can cause someone’s heart to beat quickly and blood pressure to rise, she mentioned public speaking, and people in the courtroom began to chuckle.
“Fair enough,” Raiser said, telling her to take a breath.
But the line between levity and gravity also took a sharp turn at times, like when Harris pressed three fingers onto her throat to demonstrate how easily someone can block an airway to the point that it’s uncomfortable to breathe.
“Let’s not do that again,” Raiser told her, adding that he didn’t want the medical examiner to hurt herself.
The defense attorney questioned the medical examiner about other potential causes of Neely’s death, including the fact that he had synthetic cannabinoids in his system. Harris noted that out of 10,000 overdose deaths studied by the New York City medical examiner’s office in the last four years, only seven of them were found to be caused by the particular strain of synthetic cannabinoid Neely had ingested. And all of those people had abnormal hearts, she said, but Neely’s heart was healthy.
Raiser also asked extensively about Neely’s sickle cell trait — a typically benign genetic condition that can cause blood vessels to become misshapen and less conducive to delivering oxygen. Harris said it was unlikely that the condition itself caused Neely’s to die.
Much of the cross-examination centered on the amount of pressure around Neely’s neck that would have been necessary to render him unconscious and then kill him. Raiser repeatedly pressed the medical examiner to explain how she could know the amount of force Penny was using at any given moment, and whether it was restricting the flow of oxygen or blood. Harris said she couldn’t know for sure based on a video, but that injuries she discovered during the autopsy as well as Neely’s appearance in the video suggested that the pressure was “consistently sufficient” to kill him.
Harris was the prosecution’s final witness. The prosecution rested its case late Monday afternoon. The defense called its first couple witnesses — Penny’s sister and friend — and is expected to question more witnesses this week.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Tagged
transit
new york city
public safety
manhattan
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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