On the other hand, yesterday we had a simply terrific news development in the Danny Penny case. The New York Post ran its version of the story under the headline, “
Daniel Penny acquitted in subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, sparking applause, uproar in NYC courtroom.”
Chaos erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse yesterday after the jury returned a “not guilty” verdict on the one remaining count against honorably discharged U.S. Marine Daniel Penny, 26.
When the verdict was read, deceased Subway terrorist Jordan Neely’s father, who’d popped from nowhere onto the scene last week like a deranged Jack-in-the-Box, shouted death threats at Penny and his lawyers. Outside the courtroom, all across the country, race hustlers sprinted to microphones to decry what they characterized as a travesty of justice and as official approval that white people can just kill black people whenever they want.
The rest of us, white, black, and every other melanin shade alike, breathed a long, deep sigh of relief. A guilty verdict would have been horrific,
spiritually unacceptable, and would it would have been a blow against civilization itself.
And civilization is a little shaky right now. It’s not clear how many more blows it can take.
Folks have wondered
why the jury would deadlock after four days on the more serious crime of manslaughter, but then quickly find “not guilty” on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
We find a clue in a different article about Jordan Williams, a black subway passenger who claimed to have stabbed to death another passenger in self-defense, and who was not charged by the same team prosecuting Daniel Penny. In the Williams case, the DA’s office explained that “Under New York law, a person is justified in using deadly physical force when they reasonably believe it is necessary to use such force to defend themselves or others from imminent use of deadly or unlawful physical force.”
In short, Danny Penny’s jury was on solid legal ground to find him not guilty. Even had Penny meant to kill the Subway Terrorist, the jury only had to find that Penny’s headlock was “justified” in order to defend others from unlawful physical force that Danny reasonably expected would occur.
The argument that Danny’s actions were reasonably justified to protect his fellow passengers is pretty easy to make.
We don’t know what happened in the jury room. But here is my best guess. As I’ve said before, I think this was a smart jury. I think they tried to deadlock on Count I for the optics, for strategic ambiguity, calculating that a hung jury would get Penny off the hook — plus nobody would ever know who on the jury voted for or against acquittal.
In that sense, a hung verdict would be better for the jury.
But once the DA astonishingly dismissed Count I, and the judge ordered jurors to just keep on deliberating, with no end in sight, the jury threw in the towel and said
fine, he’s not guilty.
Now let’s go home.
Who knows. That’s my personal theory as a litigator, offered as one rational reason the verdict could have played out this way.
You won't believe what the UnitedHealthcare killing and Danny Penny's not-guilty verdict have in common. And wait till you see how the Democrats are trying to undermine the Trump Administration. More.
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