PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "A person with the sickle cell trait has one of the two genes that are required for sickle cell disease, a painful and sometimes life-threatening condition that can deform red blood cells into crescent shapes that stick together and block blood flow. It’s not the first time the trait has come up in a high-profile case: In the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, defense lawyers unsuccessfully invoked sickle cell as a potential cause of death."
STORY: "Penny Trial Defense Shifts Focus From Choke to Sickle Cell and Drug Use," by Reporters Hurubie Meko and Anusha Bayya, published by The new York times, on November 22, 2024. (Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York region."
SUB-HEADING: "Lawyers for Daniel Penny, who is accused of choking Jordan Neely to death, called an expert who argued that a combination of factors led to Mr. Neely’s death."
SUB-HEADING: "Defense lawyers for Daniel Penny, who is accused of choking Jordan Neely to death, rested their case on Friday."
GIST: "Jordan Neely, a Black man who died after he was choked in a subway car last year, had the sickle cell trait, a genetic condition that can affect blood cells and overwhelmingly occurs in Black people. Whether Mr. Neely knew that he had the trait is unclear. But since his death, it has become a point of contention for lawyers.
Prosecutors have said that Daniel Penny, who is on trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide because he put Mr. Neely in a chokehold, restrained Mr. Neely for about six minutes, cutting off his airway. When Mr. Neely tried to break free, the pressure of Mr. Penny’s chokehold increased, prosecutors said.
But Mr. Penny’s lawyers have centered their case on convincing the jurors that Mr. Neely’s death was not caused by the chokehold and that it is impossible to know how much pressure Mr. Penny was exerting. Before they rested their case on Friday, the defense argued that Mr. Neely’s schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana use and misshapen blood cells led to his death. People with the sickle cell trait typically do not have many, if any, sickle-shaped cells or experience symptoms, but blood slides from Mr. Neely’s autopsy shared at the trial showed misshapen cells at the time of his death.
Now that both the defense and the prosecution have made their cases, each side will present closing arguments to the 12 jurors and four alternates. The judge presiding over the case, Maxwell Wiley, has decided that closing arguments will not happen until after Thanksgiving.
Here is what to know about the defense’s case for Mr. Penny.
The Role of Sickle Cell Trait
The medical examiner, Dr. Cynthia Harris, determined that Mr. Neely died from “compression of the neck,” and held firm to her findings through three days of testimony. However, an expert Mr. Penny’s legal team called to testify, Dr. Satish Chundru, rebutted that.
Dr. Chundru, a forensic pathologist, said Mr. Neely died from “combined effects.”
“Sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint and the synthetic marijuana,” he listed for jurors. He argued that Mr. Penny had struggled with Mr. Neely but had not choked him to death.
In a heated, at times confrontational, hourslong cross-examination, Dafna Yoran, an assistant district attorney, pushed back at Dr. Chundru’s comments, citing studies that concluded that “sickle cell trait was not associated with a higher risk of death than absence of the trait.”
Dr. Chundru said that people rarely die from the trait alone, but combined with the other factors Mr. Neely faced, it could become deadly.
A person with the sickle cell trait has one of the two genes that are required for sickle cell disease, a painful and sometimes life-threatening condition that can deform red blood cells into crescent shapes that stick together and block blood flow. It’s not the first time the trait has come up in a high-profile case: In the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, defense lawyers unsuccessfully invoked sickle cell as a potential cause of death.
A String of Character Witnesses
Mr. Penny’s lawyers have told jurors that their client is a protector — a former Marine who stepped in during Mr. Neely’s outbursts on May 1, 2023, in an effort to save his fellow riders.
To make that argument, they began by calling people who would know Mr. Penny best.
First was his sister, Jacqueline Penny, followed by Alexandra Fay, a childhood friend. They also called his mother, Gina Maria Flaim-Penny.
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The three women spoke about their close-knit community — what Ms. Fay referred to as the “West Islip bubble.” They described family dinners on the beach, Saturday nights on the town and, for a teenage Mr. Penny, lacrosse games and orchestra concerts.
“He was always a very calm, soft-spirited person,” Ms. Penny said.
The jury also heard from two of Mr. Penny’s platoon sergeants, one of whom described him as “above reproach.”
One of Mr. Penny’s lawyers, Thomas A. Kenniff, has — in a purposeful contrast — described Mr. Neely as an “unhinged nut job.”
Expert Opinions on Mr. Neely’s Past Struggles
Over three days, the jury heard from Dr. Alexander Sasha Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist, and Dr. Chundru, who testified about Mr. Neely’s likely mental health state when he boarded the uptown F train last May.
Dr. Bardey described his observations after going through Mr. Neely’s medical records, detailing for the jury more than a dozen hospitalizations between 2015 and 2021. The most common diagnoses, he said, were schizophrenia and synthetic marijuana abuse.
During one examination at Bellevue Hospital, Mr. Neely appeared “internally preoccupied, paranoid, with concrete and illogical thought process,” according to medical notes entered into evidence by the defense. Mr. Neely’s state was most likely because of “an exacerbation of schizophrenia in the setting of substance use and/or medication noncompliance,” according to the documents.
Mr. Kenniff, Mr. Penny’s lawyer, asked Dr. Bardey about witnesses’ descriptions of Mr. Neely’s erratic behavior, strong odor and disheveled appearance. Their observations, Dr. Bardey said, were proof that Mr. Neely was experiencing a severe psychotic episode.'
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/nyregion/daniel-penny-defense-jordan-neely.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
- SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
