Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office are reportedly asking the judge overseeing Daniel Penny's trial to not let witnesses call the U.S. Marine Corps veteran a "good Samaritan" or a "hero" in court, as jury selection is underway.
According to The Gothamist's reporting on an email exchange between prosecutors and Penny's defense attorneys, Assistant DA Dafna Yoran raised alarm over how witnesses could characterize the defendant after watching an interview Penny's counsel conducted on FOX 5 New York highlighting their client's heroic actions on the subway.
“Danny doesn't have to be a hero," Penny's lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, told the local outlet during a sitdown TV interview last week. "But he's someone who did the right thing. He's someone who stood up for his fellow man, for his fellow New Yorkers. He was put in a difficult situation: either cower and do nothing — when Jordan Neely is descending on a mother and her child in a baby stroller, which is part of the factual narrative of this case — or stand up and try to protect."
Yoran said the Democrat DA's office was worried that the defense might try to prompt witnesses to assess whether Penny's actions that day were warranted. Bragg's underling then asserted that witnesses shouldn't be allowed to use the terms "good Samaritan" and "hero" to describe Penny, arguing that they're subjective phrasing based on opinion.
"A witness's characterization of the defendant [as] a hero, for example, is the equivalent of a determination that the [defendant] was justified," Yoran wrote.
Rather, it should be up to the jury to decide whether Penny was justified — not the witnesses testifying about the facts, she said.
In response, Kenniff said that the witnesses who rode the subway with Penny were the ones using those words mere "minutes after this incident." Accordingly, their account of what happened should be heard in the courtroom, Kenniff countered.
"It describes what they perceived: Neely acting as the aggressor, and Mr. Penny acting to defend and protect," he replied.
As of Tuesday, with the jury selection process stretching into a second week, the judge presiding over the proceedings has yet to rule on this request.
On May 1, 2023, Penny was filmed subduing Jordan Neely, a homeless black man acting aggressively towards other passengers riding the subway, including women and children, in a chokehold lasting approximately five to six minutes. "Someone is going to die today," Neely threatened, according to witnesses. "I want to hurt people. I want to go to Rikers. I want to go to prison."
Neely later died. Penny is now facing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges over Neely's death, with prosecutors arguing that he acted recklessly resulting in this loss of life.
"I'm not trying to kill the guy," Penny told police during questioning. "I'm just trying to de-escalate the situation."
He added, "I'm just trying to keep him from hurting everyone else. That's what we learned in the Marine Corps. That's what you guys learn today as police officers."
At the start of Penny's trial, Black Lives Matter activists heckled him on his way into the courthouse, calling him a "murderer."
Donning "Malcolm X" merch, some of the "Justice for Jordan Neely" protestors held signs that accused Penny of "Racist Vigilantism" and "White Supremacist Violence." One poster demanded that the jury "Convict Daniel Penny" for "This Modern Lynching."
"This is a race thing!" BLM of Greater New York's co-founder Hawk Newsome shouted into a megaphone.
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