Daniel Penny, the former Marine who put New York City subway rider Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold, will go on trial on a charge of second-degree manslaughter no earlier than this fall, a judge said Wednesday. The judge rejected Penny's motion to have the case dismissed, ABC News reports. Dante Mills, an attorney for Neely's family, said the decision was a "big win," reports NBC News. "I think it's important to know that the grand jury said Daniel Penny should face charges for killing Jordan Neely," Mills said.
"His attorneys tried to get the judge to overrule that, to say what the grand jury said didn't matter. But the judge didn't do that," Mills said, adding that the family expects Penny to be found guilty. In a statement, Penny attorneys Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff said they disagree with the decision, but they "understand that the legal threshold to continue even an ill-conceived prosecution is very low." They said they are confident that a jury aware of Penny's actions in "putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders" will deliver a "just verdict."
Penny's lawyers have argued that Neely's behavior on the subway train on May 1 last year was "insanely threatening," though ABC reports that according to police sources, the homeless man wasn't directly threatening Penny or anybody else but rather generally harassing those on the train. Prosecutors say Penny kept Neely in a chokehold long past "purposeful movement" had stopped. Protesters gathered outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse Wednesday, with some calling Penny a murderer and some calling him a hero, reports Fox News. (More Daniel Penny stories.)
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