Ben Reacts: Daniel Penny Verdict
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Alrighty, folks. So the Daniel Penny verdict is in. He has been acquitted. Thank God. Thank God the jury did the right thing. I'll bring all the details in just one second. First, this is your reminder that DW Plus gift memberships are 40% off. That is truth. Premium entertainment, investigative journalism, all in one year. A year of Daily Wire Plus. Truly the proof.

Perfect gift for the holidays, even if it's for yourself. Head on over to dailywire.com right now. All right, so Daniel Penny has now been found not guilty by the jury in Manhattan in the so-called chokehold death of Jordan Neely. So you remember the video. This is where the drug-addled, mentally ill, homeless person is abusing people on the subway, threatening them physically.

And Daniel Penny, who's a veteran, comes up behind him and puts him in a submission hold. Again, the goal of the submission hold is to make him submit. It is to either push him to submit or to push him into unconsciousness. It was not to kill him.

There's all sorts of evidence that was presented, particularly by the defense, showing that it was not, in fact, the quote-unquote chokehold that killed him. There was no deprivation of air to his lungs, for example, so he didn't die because there was damage to the trachea, for example. And obviously, this entire situation occurred because Daniel Penny was trying to defend all of the other members of the public on the subway from the predations of Jordan Neely and the

basic presumption, I suppose, in the city of New York is that if you are a person who tries to defend your fellow citizens from criminals, then you must be prosecuted if you are of one color and the person who ends up dead is of another color.

If you are white and the person who ends up dead is black, then you will be prosecuted. If you're both white, probably not. If you're both black, probably not. But that is the way that this particular case was prosecuted from the very beginning. And it was deeply corrupt. This was ever prosecuted in the first place. It was all caught on tape. There are other members of the public who are trying to help out Daniel Penny to force Jordan Neely to stop his aggressive activity.

According to the New York Post, the panelists acquitted Penny of criminal negligent homicide, which could have put him behind bars for up to four years. Manslaughter was tossed on Friday after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict on that particular matter.

Jurors did side with the defense attorneys. They'd argue that the Marine veteran was justified in rushing to protect fellow subway strangers when he subdued the erratic homeless man. The lawyers had questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold actually caused the death, as opposed to him being high as a kite, as opposed to his prior health issues, and all of the rest. People testified in the trial who were on the train suggested that they were in fear for their lives because of what Jordan Neely was ranting.

He was ranting about being, quote-unquote, willing to die and to go to jail. One of the strangers testified that she was scared bleepless to hear Neely rant and then thanked Penny for stepping in to restrain Neely. He was literally ranting on the subway, quote, someone is going to die today. Another woman on the train told jurors she feared for her life after hearing Jordan Neely's, quote-unquote, satanic rant. And a mother who was taking her five-year-old son to a doctor's appointment testified that she was so scared she barricaded her son behind his stroller.

So the evidence showed that Neely wasn't carrying a weapon, but that isn't the question. If you have a mentally ill person on a subway train and he's abusing people, saying he's going to kill somebody, obviously you don't require a weapon in order to kill somebody. Prosecutors argued that his activity, Daniel Penney's, went too far because he kept Neely in a hold. But he kept him in a hold until law enforcement arrived. Jurors ended up watching all the footage from the six-minute video.

Penny kept holding Neely despite witnesses saying to let him go, but it was unclear, again, because Penny was behind him, whether or not he had any sort of submission in place. Bottom line is this never should have reached trial. It's ridiculous that it was on trial in the first place. The lawyer in this particular case, the prosecutor, is a far-left Soros prosecutor who has in the past attempted to let criminals off the hook based on their sad sack life stories. And in fact, the judge did his best in this particular case to ensure that Penny would be convicted.

So the jury deadlocked on the manslaughter count. So what did the judge do? Instead of dismissing all counts on that basis, the judge then dismissed the manslaughter count in order so that the jury could consider the lower possible charge. That was a violation of the original verdict sheet that was handed out by the judge. The original crime charge, manslaughter in the second degree, said, quote,

If you find the defendant guilty of count one, manslaughter in the second degree, do not consider and do not render a verdict on count two, criminally negligent homicide. If you find the defendant not guilty on count one, manslaughter in the second degree for the reason that the people have failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the defendant was not justified, you must not consider count two, criminally negligent homicide. You must also find the defendant not guilty of that count.

If you find the defendant not guilty of count one manslaughter in the second degree for some reason other than lack of justification, then proceed to consider and render a verdict on count two criminally negligent homicide. So what did the judge do? Instead of the judge saying, listen, go back in there and get me an acquittal or get me a conviction on count one. Instead of the judge doing that, the judge dismissed count one in order to allow the jury to consider count two, the criminally negligent homicide. And the standard for criminally negligent homicide is carelessness.

It has to be such that the seriousness would be apparent to anyone who shares the community's general sense of right and wrong. That is obviously not present in this particular case. Again, the reality of the situation is that Neely had synthetic marijuana, K2, in his system at the time of the confrontation. He had diagnosed schizophrenia.

It is amazing to me. They had the family members, Jordan Neely, who basically abandoned him. He was living on the street as a mentally ill drug addict. Suddenly they've emerged from the woodwork to now suggest that they need a payment from the city. They need a payment from Daniel Penny. Like that is some really, really gross stuff.

The defense medical expert is a person named Dr. Satish Chundru and claimed that Neely died not from the chokehold, but quote, from the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana. Penny said, quote, I just put him out when the cops arrived on the train platform. And he said that he was trying to deescalate the situation and didn't mean to hurt Neely. He said, I'm just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else. Now, again, the very basis of the trial was the unspoken assumption that it had something to do with race.

That was the very basis of the trial in the first place, just like with Derek Chauvin and George Floyd. It was an unstated assumption, and it was untrue. There is no evidence whatsoever that Daniel Penny behaved the way he did because Jordan Ely was black. The same thing was true with Derek Chauvin and George Floyd. We had an entire racial reckoning based on George Floyd, despite the fact that not a single iota of evidence was ever presented in that case that Derek Chauvin acted the way he did because George Floyd was black.

What does this mean? Well, it means a few things. One, the people of New York, at least this jury, but I think the people of New York generally, are sick and tired of a lawless city in which your identity allows for you to commit criminal acts without any sort of intervention by either the police or the public at large. I think that is a broad rejection, by the way, of the Black Lives Matter movement, which suggests that the police are the bad guys, that bystanders who intervene are the bad guys, that criminality is somehow justified by racial status or by status of poverty.

That is over. The American people are done with that. And I think that this is one element of that. I think that when it comes to these prosecutors, they need to be tossed out on their asses. This never should have come to trial. It never should have come to trial. Everyone knows it never should have come to trial. It is a sad and pathetic thing that this thing ever came to trial in the first place. So thanks to the jury. Thank God. Very, very happy today that Daniel Penny was acquitted in this trial.

Where does he go to get his life back? Well, listen, I think that, I hope that he'll have life opportunities on the table because we need more people like Daniel Penny who step in when bad things happen. Who has the courage to step up? Who has the courage to do the thing? The cops have been told they can't. Bystanders have been told that they will now go to jail if they step in and try to stop the sorts of violent action that Jordan Neely was threatening. So who's going to step up?

The entire system of thinking about this has to change. I'm hopeful that this is the beginning of that. We'll have a lot more on this on tomorrow's show. Your reminder, DW Plus gift memberships 40% off. That is a deal right now for the holidays. Head on over to dailywire.com right now. Get your membership for updates like this one as soon as they are available. And again, we'll see you here tomorrow for a lot more.