All through his manslaughter trial, Daniel Penny has been stoic, disciplined and impassive — by no means cracking a smile or a annoyed grimace.
His posture is so straight, you might dangle a portray flush towards his again. The 26-year-old’s been a clean slate for anybody to mission upon. Is he a former jarhead adrift? A chilly loner who informed cops that he “put [Jordan Neely] out.” A vigilante, as protesters outdoors the courtroom have known as him?
He’s none of these issues.
Based on character witnesses — together with two Marine Corps sergeants who served with him, childhood buddies, his siblings and his mom — “Danny’s” straight face belies a “softness” and compassion. He stays a person related to his childhood roots in West Islip, Lengthy Island, the place the surfer was a lacrosse standout and performed bass in native orchestras.
“He was so variety. If something he was additional variety … He at all times spoke up,” Penny’s childhood pal Alexandra Fay informed the jury Monday.
A case for canonization, this hardly makes. However, then once more, this isn’t a person who belongs behind a protection desk combating fees of manslaughter and criminally negligent murder.
On Monday, the prosecution rested after a grueling three days of testimony from medical expert Dr. Cynthia Harris, who stated that Jordan Neely was killed solely by Penny’s chokehold even when, it turned out, Neely had sufficient medicine in him “to place down an elephant.”
Penny’s protection began as information was breaking about madman and violent legal Ramon Rivera fatally stabbing three harmless strangers in a spree throughout Manhattan — a reminder of the true and random terror that has been unleashed onto the residents of New York Metropolis by progressive insurance policies.
First, Penny’s lawyer Thomas Kenniff known as the defendant’s sister Jackie, who spoke of their shut relationship, their outdoorsy childhood and his bond with their grandparents, strengthened after their dad and mom’ divorce.
Then Gina Flaim-Penny stated her son needed to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. When he didn’t get accepted, regardless of his good grades and lacrosse expertise, Penny joined the Marines, which made her “nervous.”
The mom’s nerves have been on show whereas on the stand. Requested if she was testifying honestly, she stated sure and uttered one thing so softly I couldn’t make it out, however her face was clearly contorted to carry within the anguish.
Penny’s former platoon sergeant Nolan Drylie described the Marine veteran as “above reproach” and detailed how Penny gained a Humanitarian Service Medal for his reduction work throughout Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Gunnery Sgt. Nathaniel Dunchie, who now lives in Texas, spoke about Penny’s acumen as a Marine and his acceptance of all.
The prosecution countered by noting that Penny’s pal Fay had donated to his GoFundMe protection fund, however Decide MaxwellWiley shut down that line of questioning. And, in a dirty Hail Mary, they tried to stain each Marines by mentioning previous social media posts — an try and counter their judgement as peaceable folks.
In a play to Manhattanites’ anti-gun sensibilities,one of many assistant DAs introduced up an innocuous video Dunchie posted on TikTok, exhibiting him revealing a gun inside his fanny pack, accompanied by audio that claims “nobody will know.”
Kenniff requested if Texans have completely different attitudes towards weapons, including, “Are you a legal?”
“No I’m not,” Dunchie stated.
And neither is Penny.
All of this testimony introduced the defendant to life — making a portrait of a peaceable and compassionate man hardwired to intervene on behalf of strangers in want.
It was a placing distinction to the afternoon, when forensic psychiatrist Alexander Bardey took the stand. The physician testified that he reviewed between 4,000 and 5,000 pages of Neely’s psychiatric historical past, relationship from 2015 to 2021 and together with greater than a dozen hospitalizations.
Bardey stated the most typical diagnoses have been schizophrenia and abuse of the artificial drug K2, describing Neely’s case as “extreme.”
Medical information revealed Neely’s paranoid fears that folks needed to harm him and his perception that rapper Tupac Shakur, who died in 1996,needed to make use of him to alter the world.
Neely, who additionally had a historical past of violence, was a hazard to himself — and to different New Yorkers.
Penny sensed that. And, regardless of the DA’s assertions in opening statements that he “didn’t acknowledge [Neely’s] humanity,” the ex Marine noticed humanity throughout him on that F practice in Could of 2023 and determined to behave.
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