Last Monday, many Americans who had been closely following the Daniel Penny trial out of New York City collectively held their breath as they waited for the verdict to be announced.
Would he be found guilty and face up to four years in prison or found not guilty and become a free man?
For those who are unfamiliar with the case, Penny, 26, took action on May 1, 2023, after a mentally ill homeless man with a lengthy criminal record, 30-year-old Jordan Neely, boarded the subway train and proceeded to act aggressively and threateningly toward other passengers, according to witnesses.
The Marine Corps veteran put Neely in a submission hold as two other riders also helped subdue him to try and neutralize the threat. After officers and other first responders arrived on the scene, Neely was transferred to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Agitators took to the streets and disrupted the subway system soon after as politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) accused Penny of being a “murderer” in Neely’s death. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also added fuel to the fire by declaring that Neely, who was black, had been “lynched on the subway” by Penny, who is white.
All of this helped stoke the mob mentality that eventually led Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to charge Penny, who voluntarily turned himself in, with one count each of second-degree manslaughter and negligent homicide a month and a half after the incident.
As his trial began, many observers feared it wouldn’t be even close to a fair one, considering the venue and the fact that it appeared that public sentiment was divided on whether Penny did the right thing that day or went too far.
Those worries increased when, on the Friday before the verdict was announced, the jury indicated they were hopelessly deadlocked on the second-degree manslaughter count.
Soon after, the judge in the case, Justice Maxwell Wiley, dismissed the charge after being asked to do so by prosecutors and instructed the jurors to begin deliberations on the lesser negligent homicide charge.
For some trial observers, it appeared the fix was in, that both the judge and the prosecutors were trying to make it easier for the jury to convict Penny.
But that following Monday, Dec. 9, the jury returned with a unanimous “not guilty” verdict. And for those who believed Penny did what any concerned citizen would do in taking action after seeing the people around them endangered, a sigh of relief was breathed.
Deputy Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Daniel Henninger explained it this way: “(Big Apple) residents are basically OK with this result, since the alternative would have been to confirm Mr. Bragg’s determination to imprison Mr. Penny for preventing yet another act of random, often fatal, violence.”
“The verdict is a clear dissent from the progressive criminal-justice theories of Mr. Bragg and his local allies,” Henninger also wrote, hinting at Bragg’s soft-on-crime reputation except in cases where convictions (like President-elect Donald Trump’s) earn him back pats and high-fives from social justice warriors.
Penny undoubtedly wants to move on with his life, which has been complicated by what’s unfolded over the last year and a half.
Whatever he decides to do, here’s hoping that between the acquittal, the way he’s handled himself and the support he’s getting from Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and others will help him be able to successfully put all of this behind him.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
