Closing Arguments to Begin in Subway Chokehold Trial

Daniel Penny was charged with manslaughter in the choking death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was shouting in a subway car, last year.

A month after lawyers began laying out their case in Daniel Penny’s trial, they are set to make their final arguments on Monday to the jury that will decide his fate.

Mr. Penny, a former Marine and Long Island native, was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after he put Jordan Neely in a chokehold for about six minutes in a subway car last year, killing him, prosecutors said.

Mr. Neely, 30, who was homeless and had struggled with his mental health for years, boarded an uptown F train on the afternoon of May 1, 2023, and began yelling, throwing his jacket on the floor and striding through the subway car, according to witnesses. As he approached other riders, he screamed that he was hungry, that he wanted to return to jail and that he did not care if he lived or died, they said.

Lawyers for Mr. Penny, 26, told the jury that their client had stepped in to restrain Mr. Neely, concerned that he would hurt other passengers.

In making their case, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not contest the likely motivation behind Mr. Penny’s actions. His initial efforts to restrain Mr. Neely may have been “even laudable,” said Dafna Yoran, an assistant district attorney.

“But under the law, deadly physical force such as a chokehold is permitted only when it is absolutely necessary, and only for as long as it is absolutely necessary,” she said during opening statements. “And here, the defendant went way too far.”