A New York City jury on Monday found Marine veteran Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a man he placed in a chokehold on a subway train.

The jury’s verdict came days after Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the top count of manslaughter against Penny after jurors said they were deadlocked on it.

Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in “blameworthy conduct” that one fails to perceive would contribute to a risk of death. It carries punishments ranging from probation to up to four years imprisonment.

Manslaughter involves recklessly causing another person’s death and carries a possible sentence of up to 15 years behind bars. Penny pleaded not guilty to both charges.

“As with every case, we followed the facts and the evidence from beginning to end. A grand jury voted to indict, and the office carefully presented this case to a trial jury. Over the course of the trial, we introduced medical records, videos, bodycam footage, and testimony from over 30 witnesses, including from the city’s office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The jury carefully deliberated for four days. They requested readbacks of testimony and asked for video footage to re-watch, as well as written definitions of the law. Their lengthy deliberation – and the totality of the facts and the evidence – underscored why this case was put in front of a jury of Mr. Penny’s peers," the Manhattan Distict Attorney's office said in a statement. 

“The jury has now spoken. At the Manhattan D.A.’s Office we deeply respect the jury process and we respect their verdict," the MNDA added.

Penny placed Jordan Neely, 30, in a chokehold for about six minutes after Neely began acting erratically on a subway car in May of 2023.

During the monthlong trial, the 26-year-old's lawyers argued he put his own life on the line to protect other passengers from a mentally ill man, while prosecutors said he went too far in responding to Neely, who was unarmed.

The case amplified many American fault lines, among them race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness and homelessness. Neely was Black. Penny is white.

There were sometimes dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, and high-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats attended Neely’s funeral.

The verdict capped a trial that took a tumultuous turn last Friday, when jurors said they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on the manslaughter charge. The judge then dismissed it at prosecutors’ request — a rare one for prosecutors to make in the thick of a trial.

Penny served four years in the Marines and went on to study architecture.

Neely, 30, was a sometime subway performer with a tragic life story: His mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase when he was a teenager.

As a younger man, Neely did Michael Jackson tributes — complete with moonwalks — on the city’s streets and subways, building a reputation among the artist’s fans and impersonators. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her.

Hospitalized for depression at age 14, Neely later was diagnosed with schizophrenia that at times made him hallucinate and become paranoid, according to medical records seen at the trial. Neely also used the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and realized it negatively affected his thinking and behavior, according to a 2019 hospital record. The drug was in his system when he died.

Neely told a doctor in 2017 that being homeless, living in poverty and having to “dig through the garbage” for food made him feel so worthless and hopeless that he sometimes thought of killing himself, hospital records show.

About six years later, he boarded a subway under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, hurled his jacket onto the floor, and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care if he died or went to jail, witnesses said. Some told 911 operators that he tried to attack people or indicated he’d harm riders, and several testified that they were nervous or outright feared for their lives.

Neely was unarmed, with nothing but a muffin in his pocket, and didn’t touch any passengers on the train. Multiple riders testified that he didn’t even approach anybody. But one said he made lunging movements that alarmed her enough that she shielded her 5-year-old from him.

Penny, who was on his way from a college class to the gym, came up behind Neely, grabbed his neck, took him to the floor and “put him out,” as he told police at the scene.

Other passengers’ video showed that at one point during the roughly six-minute hold, Neely tapped an onlooker’s leg and gestured to him. At another juncture, Neely briefly got an arm free. But he went still nearly a minute before Penny released him.

“He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in the background of one video. “Let him go!”

A witness who stepped in to hold down Neely’s arms testified that he told Penny to free the man, though Penny’s lawyers noted the witness’ story changed significantly over time.

Penny told detectives shortly after the encounter that Neely threatened to kill people and the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could arrive. The veteran said he held on after the train stopped because he wasn’t sure the doors were open and Neely periodically squirmed.

“I wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps,” Penny told the detectives, who had read him his rights.

However, a Marine Corps combat instructor — who trained Penny — testified that the veteran misused a chokehold technique he’d been taught. Prosecutors also argue that any need to protect passengers quickly ebbed when the train doors opened at the next station, seconds after Penny took action.

Although Penny himself told police he’d used “a choke” or “a chokehold,” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, cast it as a Marine-taught chokehold “modified as a simple civilian restraint.” The defense lawyers contended that Penny didn’t consistently apply enough pressure to kill Neely, and they brought their own forensic pathologist to the stand to buttress their claim.

Contradicting the city medical examiner’s ruling, the defense pathologist said Neely died not from the chokehold but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his struggle and restraint, and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications during exertion.

Penny decided not to testify. But several of his relatives, friends and fellow Marines did, describing him as an upstanding, patriotic and empathetic man.

“He was always a very calm, soft-spirited person,” sister Jacqueline Penny told jurors.

Prosecutors never accused Penny of deliberately killing Neely. The eventually dismissed manslaughter charge required proving a defendant recklessly caused another person’s death. Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in serious “blameworthy conduct” while not perceiving such a risk.

While the criminal trial played out, Neely’s father filed a wrongful death suit against Penny.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, Mayor Eric Adams said he respects the process that resulted in the jury acquitting Penny.

“A jury of his peers heard the case, saw all the facts and all the evidence, and made a decision, and I join [Manhattan] DA [Alvin] Bragg in stating that I respect the process,” Adams said.

The mayor also called the mental health system “broken” and said the city needs help for the system from both Albany and the City Council.

“Jordan should not have had to die,” he said.

In a statement, David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, also criticized the city and state's mental health care system.

"Jordan deserved a life of dignity and respect – and deserved the help that he sought, but could not get. Instead, he became the victim of not only 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," Giffen's statement reads, in part. "Jordan was well known to city officials as a high-risk case and had already been in and out of shelters. His death could have been prevented long before he entered that subway car."