Jordan Neely, a Black man who died after he was choked in a subway car last year, had the sickle cell trait, a genetic condition that can affect blood cells and overwhelmingly occurs in Black people. Whether Mr. Neely knew that he had the trait is unclear. But since his death, it has become a point of contention for lawyers.
Prosecutors have said that Daniel Penny, who is on trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide because he put Mr. Neely in a chokehold, restrained Mr. Neely for about six minutes, cutting off his airway. When Mr. Neely tried to break free, the pressure of Mr. Penny’s chokehold increased, prosecutors said.
But Mr. Penny’s lawyers have centered their case on convincing the jurors that Mr. Neely’s death was not caused by the chokehold and that it is impossible to know how much pressure Mr. Penny was exerting. Before they rested their case on Friday, the defense argued that Mr. Neely’s schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana use and misshapen blood cells led to his death. People with the sickle cell trait typically do not have many, if any, sickle-shaped cells or experience symptoms, but blood slides from Mr. Neely’s autopsy shared at the trial showed misshapen cells at the time of his death.
Now that both the defense and the prosecution have made their cases, each side will present closing arguments to the 12 jurors and four alternates. The judge presiding over the case, Maxwell Wiley, has decided that closing arguments will not happen until after Thanksgiving.
Here is what to know about the defense’s case for Mr. Penny.
The Role of Sickle Cell Trait
The medical examiner, Dr. Cynthia Harris, determined that Mr. Neely died from “compression of the neck,” and held firm to her findings through three days of testimony. However, an expert Mr. Penny’s legal team called to testify, Dr. Satish Chundru, rebutted that.
Dr. Chundru, a forensic pathologist, said Mr. Neely died from “combined effects.”
“Sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint and the synthetic marijuana,” he listed for jurors. He argued that Mr. Penny had struggled with Mr. Neely but had not choked him to death.
In a heated, at times confrontational, hourslong cross-examination, Dafna Yoran, an assistant district attorney, pushed back at Dr. Chundru’s comments, citing studies that concluded that “sickle cell trait was not associated with a higher risk of death than absence of the trait.”
Dr. Chundru said that people rarely die from the trait alone, but combined with the other factors Mr. Neely faced, it could become deadly.
A person with the sickle cell trait has one of the two genes that are required for sickle cell disease, a painful and sometimes life-threatening condition that can deform red blood cells into crescent shapes that stick together and block blood flow. It’s not the first time the trait has come up in a high-profile case: In the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, defense lawyers unsuccessfully invoked sickle cell as a potential cause of death.
A String of Character Witnesses
Mr. Penny’s lawyers have told jurors that their client is a protector — a former Marine who stepped in during Mr. Neely’s outbursts on May 1, 2023, in an effort to save his fellow riders.
To make that argument, they began by calling people who would know Mr. Penny best.
First was his sister, Jacqueline Penny, followed by Alexandra Fay, a childhood friend. They also called his mother, Gina Maria Penny-Flaim.
The three women spoke about their close-knit community — what Ms. Fay referred to as the “West Islip bubble.” They described family dinners on the beach, Saturday nights on the town and, for a teenage Mr. Penny, lacrosse games and orchestra concerts.
“He was always a very calm, soft-spirited person,” Ms. Penny said.
The jury also heard from two of Mr. Penny’s platoon sergeants, one of whom described him as “above reproach.”
One of Mr. Penny’s lawyers, Thomas A. Kenniff, has — in a purposeful contrast — described Mr. Neely as an “unhinged nut job.”
Expert Opinions on Mr. Neely’s Past Struggles
Over three days, the jury heard from Dr. Alexander Sasha Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist, and Dr. Chundru, who testified about Mr. Neely’s likely mental health state when he boarded the uptown F train last May.
Dr. Bardey described his observations after going through Mr. Neely’s medical records, detailing for the jury more than a dozen hospitalizations between 2015 and 2021. The most common diagnoses, he said, were schizophrenia and synthetic marijuana abuse.
During one examination at Bellevue Hospital, Mr. Neely appeared “internally preoccupied, paranoid, with concrete and illogical thought process,” according to medical notes entered into evidence by the defense. Mr. Neely’s state was most likely because of “an exacerbation of schizophrenia in the setting of substance use and/or medication noncompliance,” according to the documents.
Mr. Kenniff, Mr. Penny’s lawyer, asked Dr. Bardey about witnesses’ descriptions of Mr. Neely’s erratic behavior, strong odor and disheveled appearance. Their observations, Dr. Bardey said, were proof that Mr. Neely was experiencing a severe psychotic episode.
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