Penny Acquittal Sharply Divides New York

NEW YORK — The acquittal of Daniel Penny in the death of Jordan Neely sharply divided the political establishment Monday in a case that has highlighted New York’s failure to adequately care for mentally ill and homeless residents.

Jurors found Penny did not commit criminally negligent homicide when he placed Neely in a chokehold aboard an F train in February 2023. Neely later died, and a medical examiner ruled homicide as his cause of death.

With New Yorkers still ranking crime among their top concerns, reaction to the case split sharply along partisan lines among elected officials.

In addition to praising Penny as a hero, many Republicans took the opportunity to decry Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, for charging Penny at all. They said the former Marine was merely standing up for his fellow passengers and pointed to the fact that he told police he did not intend to kill Neely.

“I have not said much about this case out of fear of (negatively) influencing the journey,” Vice President-Elect JD Vance posted on X Monday afternoon. “But thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”

Many Republicans have been calling for Bragg to resign or be removed from office for years, citing his prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump and his policy of foregoing prosecutions for certain low-level crimes. Some elected officials reiterated those calls after the verdict, including Rep. Mike Lawler, who’s considering a run for governor, and City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli.

“The only evidence we saw was the clear and convincing evidence of the perverse idea of justice held by Alvin Bragg,” Borelli said. “He should resign, move out of state and live out the rest of his days in shame as the least effective law enforcement official since Barney Fife.”

Bragg has resisted all such calls and is favored for reelection in 2025 in his heavily Democratic borough. Mayor Eric Adams, who has also faced calls to resign or be removed following his indictment, stood up for Bragg saying he is “totally against using mechanisms” to remove elected officials, adding that they have had a “great partnership.”

Bragg’s office defended bringing the charges, saying that the jury’s four days of deliberations “underscored why this case was put in front of a jury of Mr. Penny’s peers.” The office said it respects the jury process — an earlier manslaughter was dismissed after jurors were deadlocked — and the verdict. But in a sign of how the case had become a cause célèbre on the right, he condemned how the prosecutors on the case and their family members “were besieged with hate and threats — on social media, by phone and over email.”

Advocates and left-leaning organizations expressed outrage at the acquittal.

David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said Neely was well known to service providers and had long been in and out of the homeless shelter system. Instead of clashing with Penny, he argued, Neely should have received medical care long ago.

“Jordan deserved a life of dignity and respect — and deserved the help that he sought, but could not get,” Giffen said in a statement. “Instead, he became the victim of … Daniel Penny’s outrageous and unacceptable vigilantism and of our City’s and State’s failure to provide quality voluntary mental health care and access to permanent supportive housing to people trying to survive on our streets.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams pointed to the racial and socioeconomic overtones of the case. Penny, 26, is white and a former Marine. Neely was Black and 30 years old when he died last year.

“What would the verdict be if there was a Black homeless man who felt threatened by a white ex-Marine who maybe had some mental issues, and choked him to death?” Williams asked a group of reporters.

The New York Working Families Party called Neely’s death “a modern-day lynching.”

“Today’s news that Daniel Penny was found not guilty of murdering Jordan Neely underscores that our criminal justice system is still beyond broken,” Jasmine Gripper and Ana María Archila, co-directors of the party, said in a statement. “This ruling fails to recognize that Jordan Neely’s life mattered.”

Gripper and Archila singled out the mayor for failing to condemn Penny’s actions.

On Monday, Adams largely deferred to the jury while lamenting the state of New York’s social safety net. Adams has been seeking more authority from Albany to forcibly detain New Yorkers living on the streets who pose a danger to themselves or other people.

“Do I think it’s the right verdict or the wrong verdict? The jury made their decision,” he said. “I respect the process.”