Daniel Penny Not Guilty

The Jury's Strange Road

De: Matthew Russell Lee

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

This is the story of the prosecution of Daniel Penny, after the death of Jordan Neely in the F Train in Manhattan, and how it resulted in a Not Guilty verdict on Count 2 on December 9, 2024. It is a sequel to "Daniel Penny for Your Thoughts," about the evidence phase of the trial. It covers both sides arguments, the judges rulings, and some narrative in the voice of one Kurt Wheelock, featured in Inner City Press books by Matthew Russell Lee all the way back to "Predatory Bender."

Kurt Wheelock leaves his camera and his laptop's external battery in his cubicle in the Press Room of the Federal courthouse on Pearl Street. So he goes to pick up it, the sun barely up, so he can take both with him over to state court for the fourth day of jury deliberations in the Daniel Penny case.
He has uploaded the Vasquez video of the chokehold of Jordan Neely to his YouTube; he has live tweeted the direct examination and cross of the two medical experts, the high school witnesses, Penny's friends from Long Island and the Marines.
Still the jury has already spent three days deliberating, sending out notes for that same Vasquez video, and Penny's interrogation in the Fifth Precinct on Elizabeth.
Kurt had stood out from of the precinct with this same came that day last day when they perp-walked Penny out, and pushed his head down to put him in a car and drive to court. Now Kurt is walking there, seeing his breathe white in the cold air in front of him.
The elevator lurches up to the 13th floor and the doors open. Already at 8:10 am there is a long line of journalists. The first day, Kurt came just before the 10 am start and was left out in the hall all morning.

With two hours to kill before any possible jury note, and an hour before any journalists are let into the courtroom, Kurt sits down on the marble floor and opens up his laptop.

The courthouse has a Public wi-fi but it is slow. He uploads a vlog he shot on his phone on the short walk over here, and watches at the percent actually online inched from 10 percent to 11. He flips to another screen, to send in written questions to the UN spokespeople that they will never answer.

His vlog has almost finished uploading 50 minutes later when a court security officer says, Look lively, get your press passes out to show them. Kurt takes out from inside his jacket and holds his laptop at his side, still plugged into his phone with the video on it.
The officer looks at Kurt's press pass - it's good until January 14, 2025, more than a month from now - and nods.

The journalists sit in the order they are admitted. Kurt is in the back row, one of the last three who made it in. The day is about to begin.

It past 10:30 am when Judge Maxwell Wiley comes out of a side door into the courtroom and assumes the bench. We have received a note, he announces. Kurt tweets it out word for work, on X then Threads then BlueSky. Today he will even do Truth Social, which he otherwise rarely uses, because a guy in the hall in the public line in a red MAGA hat greeted him loudly, said he loved Kurt's work.

This drew glares, or maybe raised eyebrows. Kurt was used to this dynamic. It had happened at the UN. He'd been thrown out of there, and was still banned. Here, he smiled, merely shrugging at the MAGA guy, and concealed his use of Truth Social by turning the illumination on his laptop way down. Even so the TV news guys say it and did a double take. Penny's was a divisive case, a sort of Rashomon.

Prosecutor Dafna Yoran came in, then Daniel Penny and his flotilla of lawyers and helpers. One guy was on the Get Gotti documentary series on Netflix. He looked older now, and limped. But he was on the team.

Judge Wiley read the note: We the jury cannot reach unanimity on Count 1.

And then the games began…