Marine veteran Daniel Penny has been indicted for manslaughter relating to an incident where Jordan Neeley, a homeless man making threats, died. CBS News. Neely was acting erratically and making death threats to Penny and other people on a subway train. Penny restrained Neely with a neckhold and Neely eventually died. Penny says he never intended to hurt Neely, instead he was trying to protect himself and others. The case and the indictment has caused outrage across the political spectrum.
My Comment:
I have to admit that I failed here. I could not find a shareable video of the actual incident that didn't have censorship or some idiot giving commentary over it. I tried Google, Bing and Yandex and the best I could find was this tweet that did have the video but I was unable to embed it for some reason. The option wasn't even there. Even that tweet was pretty biased as well, though I do agree with it.
I consider this a miscarriage of justice. It's obvious that Penny did the right thing when the restrained Neely. Everything we have heard about Neely is that he was a danger to himself and others. He had a long criminal history and I honestly don't care that he died.
I also don't think that the prosecutors will be able to prove that Penny is guilty of 2nd Degree Manslaughter. Under New York law 2nd Degree Manslaughter requires someone to recklessly cause a death. It would require that Penny had engaged in conduct that causes a "substantial and unjustified" risk of death, he was aware that death could be result and that no reasonable person would agree was a justified reaction.
On all three counts Penny passes the test. The chokehold that Penny put Neely in might not have caused the death. Given he was having a mental issue and had a history of drug use it was possible, likely even, that he died because of his actions, not because of the chokehold. Given that Neely was alive when Penny let him go and that he died in the hospital it's very possible that he didn't even die from the actions of Penny.
As for Penny being aware that he could cause a death, I am not sure he was. He didn't seem to think that the chokehold was harming Neely and, again, he was probably right. He was probably acting on his training in the Marine Corps and may have done the same thing in training with nobody getting hurt. Chokeholds can be dangerous but mostly when you knock someone out with them. Penny didn't do that.
As for the reasonable person standard, I think it's pretty clear that most people are on Penny's side. Given that Neely was making death threats, acting erratically and could attack someone at any time I think Penny was more than justified in restraining Penny. It might not reach the standard of lethal force but, again, he didn't use lethal force.
Even if the jury somehow decides that Penny doesn't pass that test they might decide to let him go anyways. This seems like a perfect case for jury nullification. There is no reason that even if the prosecution proves the case, which I don't think they can do, the jury can't decide to let him go.
Regardless, I never understood the "outrage" in this case. Indeed, the vast majority of commentary praised Penny and was angry that the idea of charging him ever came up. Even in New York people wanted Penny to go free.
Why? Because people are sick and tired of crime. Most people in New York have had encounters with crazed homeless people on public transportation and wish that they had someone like Penny to help them while being threatened, mugged or attacked.
Hopefully this case will result in Penny going free. I do think that the pendulum is swinging against crime in this country. I mean, compare this case to the George Floyd case. The circumstances were similar, crazed drug user gets restrained and dies. In that case there was a conviction and riots, in this case though? I think we will see the opposite outcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment