A Manhattan jury has acquitted Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely in a crowded subway, a murder caught on video that sparked fierce debate about the city’s mental health system and underground crime.

Panelists acquitted Penny of involuntary manslaughter — which could have put him behind bars for up to four years — in Neely’s chokehold death on a crowded uptown F train in May 2023.

Penny’s main charge of involuntary manslaughter was dismissed Friday after jurors twice said they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

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Jurors sided with Penny’s defense attorneys, who had argued that the Marine veteran was justified in rushing to protect his subway colleagues when he subdued the unpredictable homeless man. Attorneys had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold was responsible for Neely’s death.

“Who do you want to take with you on the next train ride?” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, said in his closing statement in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“The guy with the earbuds who minds his own business and who you know will be there for you if something happens? Or maybe you just hope someone like Jordan Neely doesn’t get on that train when you’re all alone, all alone in a crowd of others frozen in fear?”

Attorneys had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold was responsible for Neely’s death.

The acquittal came after jurors heard from more than 40 witnesses, including passengers, who described Neely’s terrifying outburst on the train before Penny approached him from behind and picked him up at the Broadway-Lafayette station.

One straphanger said she was “scared to death” when she heard Neely’s tirade about how she was “ready to die and go to prison.” She later thanked Penny for stepping in to restrain Neely, who was also angry that “someone is going to die today.”

Another woman on the train told jurors she feared for her life after hearing Neely’s “satanic” rant.

And a mother who took her 5-year-old son to a doctor’s appointment said she was so afraid of the “belligerent and moody” Neely that she barricaded her son behind his stroller.

No witness testified that Neely put his hands on anyone or lunged at a specific person before Penny put him in a chokehold. Evidence during the month-long trial also revealed that Neely was not carrying a weapon at the time – police only found a muffin in his pocket.

The polarizing case sparked heated debate about a mentally ill man failed by the city’s broken system – a sentiment even expressed by Mayor Eric Adams when he said Penny “did what we should have done as a city.” “by protecting others that day.

Prosecutors argued that Penny went “too far” – and that his actions became criminal when he held Neely in the hold after nearly all the frightened passengers had fled the train.

“The tragedy of this case is that although the defendant initially tried to do the right thing, as the chokehold progressed, the defendant knew that Jordan Neely was in great distress and dying, and he continued unnecessarily,” said prosecutor Dafna Yoran in her final statement.

Jurors watched frame-by-frame footage from a six-minute bystander video of Penny holding Neely – including 51 seconds after Neely’s body appeared to go limp. Penny continued to hold Neely despite witnesses begging him to “let him go!”, the video shows.

Dr. Cynthia Harris, who ruled Neely’s death a homicide caused by Penny’s chokehold, showed jurors the exact moment Neely passed out on the subway car floor – with Penny still there put his arm around Neely’s neck.

The city medical examiner, who made her decision before Neely’s toxicology report came back, testified that after watching video of the encounter, she was so confident that she would stand by her decision even if it later turned out that Neely was had enough drugs in his system to “kill an elephant.”

Jurors asked to read this specific portion of Harris’ testimony during deliberations.

Evidence from the trial revealed that Neely had the synthetic marijuana drug K2 in his system at the time of the confrontation. Jurors also heard he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and told doctors in 2021 he heard the “voice of the devil.”

Penny’s mother, sister, friends and fellow Marines took the stand to vouch for his character.

The defense’s medical expert, forensic pathologist Dr. Satish Chundru, claimed Neely died not from Penny’s chokehold, but from “the combined effects of sickle cell anemia, schizophrenia, fighting and restraint, and synthetic marijuana.”

Penny declined to comment. But jurors heard him tell arriving police officers on the platform: “I just threw him out” before making a choking gesture with his arms.

Hours later, in Chinatown’s 5th Ward, a relaxed Penny insisted during an interrogation that he was simply trying to “de-escalate the situation” and that he didn’t mean to hurt Neely.

“I’m not trying to kill the guy,” the Marine veteran told two investigators as prosecutors watched him through a one-way mirror. “I’m just trying to stop him from hurting anyone.”

In an apparent reference to the mentally ill Neely, Penny added during his questioning that “all these people are pushing people in front of the train and stuff.”

Neely’s death and Penny’s arrest eleven days later sparked a national political uproar over whether Penny’s actions were justified.

The episode also sparked outrage over how Neely fell through the cracks of the city’s mental health system and did not receive the treatment he needed, despite the NYPD treating him as an “emotionally disturbed person” in more than two dozen previous encounters with him.

“This case is about a broken system, a broken system that doesn’t help our mentally ill people
“We are not accommodated,” Penny’s attorney, Raiser, said at the end of his closing statement.

“In fact, it is this broken system that has guided us and is woven into the fabric of this case.”