XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, misc.legal, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.nationalism.white   
   From: democrat-insurrection@mail.house.gov   
      
   The judge overseeing the trial of Daniel Penny, the man accused of using a   
   deadly chokehold on Jordan Neely last year on a New York City subway,   
   dismissed a manslaughter charge in the case Friday after jurors said they   
   were deadlocked.   
      
   The decision, which came at the request of prosecutors, means the   
   anonymous jury will consider only the lesser charge of criminally   
   negligent homicide. It carries a maximum sentence of up to four years.   
   Jurors were not told that prosecutors made the request. Penny has pleaded   
   not guilty.   
      
   “You are now free to consider count two,” Judge Maxwell Wiley told jurors.   
   “Whether that makes any difference or not, I have no idea.”   
      
   The jurors — seven women and five men — will resume deliberations Monday.   
   They twice sent a note to the judge Friday — one in the morning and   
   another in the afternoon — saying they could not come to a unanimous   
   decision on the top charge of manslaughter in the second degree. After the   
   first note, Wiley read jurors what is known as an Allen charge, official   
   instructions to continue deliberating “with an open mind” to reach a   
   unanimous verdict.   
      
   Before deliberations began Tuesday afternoon, Wiley told the jury that it   
   must come to a unanimous decision on the manslaughter charge before it   
   would be allowed to consider criminally negligent homicide. They were also   
   instructed to decide whether Penny’s actions caused Neely’s death and, if   
   so, whether he had acted recklessly and in an unjustified manner.   
      
   Penny, a former Marine and architecture student, had been coming from   
   class and was on his way to the gym on the afternoon of May 1, 2023, when   
   he encountered an erratic Neely on a subway train.   
      
   Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, threw his jacket to the   
   ground and loudly ranted about being hungry, thirsty and not caring about   
   whether he died or went back to jail when he boarded the train, witnesses   
   have testified. Penny put him in a chokehold that prosecutors said lasted   
   six minutes. It continued after the uptown F train arrived at its next   
   stop, the Broadway-Lafayette station, bystander video showed. Neely, 30,   
   was homeless and had a history of mental illness. At the time of his   
   death, he had synthetic marijuana — known as K2 — in his system.   
      
   The case became a flashpoint in the long-standing debates over racial   
   justice and safety within the city’s subway system, as well as the city’s   
   failures in addressing homelessness and mental illness, both of which   
   Neely had struggled with.   
      
   Penny, 26, and his attorneys have said that he acted to protect other   
   passengers and that he did not intend to harm Neely, only to restrain him   
   until police arrived.   
      
   A city medical examiner found that Neely died from compression to his neck   
   as a result of the chokehold, a finding that Penny’s attorneys, Thomas   
   Kenniff and Steven Rasier, have disputed.   
      
   Outside the presence of the jury Friday, Kenniff more than once asked that   
   the judge declare a mistrial when the jury could not reach an agreement on   
   the manslaughter charge. He also objected to the dismissal of the charge.   
      
   He said it “is essentially elbowing the 12 members of the jury” to force   
   them into “manufactured unanimity” on the lesser charge, Kenniff said.   
      
   Before the more serious charge was dismissed, prosecution and defense   
   attorneys had sparred over whether jurors should be forced to continue   
   deliberating.   
      
   “The jury has been deliberating for roughly 20 hours over four days in   
   what is, in many ways, a factually uncomplicated case as far as this is an   
   event that transpired over minutes on video,” Kenniff told the judge. “We   
   are concerned that the giving of the Allen charge under these   
   circumstances will be coercive.”   
      
   Dafna Yoran, an assistant prosecutor with the Manhattan District   
   Attorney’s Office, disagreed. She said that morning the note was the first   
   indication of any disagreement within the jury and that it would be “a   
   crazy result to have a hung jury” because jurors were not allowed to   
   consider a second count.   
      
   The jurors have sent the judge 10 or so notes since deliberations began.   
   They asked to rewatch bystander videos of Penny restraining Neely,   
   responding officers’ body camera videos and video of Penny’s subsequent   
   interview with two police detectives at a precinct. They also asked to   
   rehear some of the medical examiner’s testimony and for the judge to read   
   back the definitions of recklessness and criminal negligence and to have   
   the definitions in writing.   
      
   In between the two notes about being deadlocked, jurors also asked for   
   clarification or elaboration on the meaning of “reasonable person” in the   
   jury instructions.   
      
   “The tenor of the notes is that this is an extremely conscientious jury   
   that has been approaching it very systematically,” Wiley said after the   
   defense team’s first request for a mistrial Friday. “So I think it is   
   correct, it’s not time to declare a mistrial. But, on the other hand, it’s   
   not time to assume that they’ve just sent this note out because it’s   
   gotten difficult for them.”   
      
   Later, before dismissing the manslaughter charge, Wiley told jurors that   
   he did not want them to violate their consciences or abandon their best   
   judgment.   
      
   “I will again urge each of you to make every possible effort to arrive at   
   a just verdict here,” he said.   
      
   After their first note indicating they were deadlocked, Wiley commended   
   the jurors for their work so far, and told them that it is not uncommon   
   for juries to have difficulty initially in reaching a unanimous verdict.   
      
   “You’ve been at this for a little over two and a half days,” he told the   
   jurors before directing them to resume deliberations. “That’s a long time.   
   But given the factual complexity of the case, I don’t think it’s too   
   long.”   
      
      
   --   
   November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look   
   forward to America being great again.   
      
   The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and   
   eradicated.   
      
   We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that   
   stupid people won't be offended.   
      
   Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.   
      
   Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden   
   fiasco, President Trump.   
      
   Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the   
   The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood   
   queer liberal democrat donors.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)