The medical expert who dominated Jordan Neely’s demise was a murder brought on by Daniel Penny’s chokehold insisted Friday she’d stand by the ruling — even when it one way or the other turned out the homeless man had sufficient medication in his physique “to put down an elephant.”
Video of the deadly subway encounter so convincingly revealed Neely had died from the maneuver, that “no toxicology result could have changed my opinion,” Dr. Cynthia Harris, who carried out his post-mortem, advised jurors at Penny’s lightning-rod Manhattan manslaughter trial.
Footage of the deadly encounter reveals the previous Marine maintaining Neely within the maintain for greater than six minutes — together with 51 seconds after his physique went limp — and makes clear that the homeless man didn’t endure a drug overdose, Harris testified.
Harris’ testimony got here throughout cross-examination by Penny’s protection attorneys, who questioned her about initially saying on Neely’s demise certificates that his explanation for demise was “inconclusive.”
The physician mentioned she determined that Neely’s demise was brought on by “asphyxia,” in step with being choked, after reviewing a journalist’s video of Neely “dying” whereas Penny’s arm is wrapped round his neck.
“After watching it, I had no further questions about how he was dead,” she testified.
Harris mentioned that she reached her conclusion earlier than receiving Neely’s toxicology report.
The report in the end confirmed that Neely, who jurors have heard had a historical past of abusing the artificial marijuana drug K2, had the drug in his system when he died.
However Harris mentioned that she would have discovered the chokehold brought on Neely’s demise even when it turned out he had “enough fentanyl in his system to put down an elephant.”
Video of the chokehold — which Harris mentioned confirmed Neely’s face turning “purple” as Penny compressed the veins in his neck — reveals that “there are no alternative reasonable explanations” for a way he died, she testified.
Harris additionally pinpointed for jurors the precise second when Neely handed out on the subway automotive’s flooring, with Penny nonetheless greedy him within the chokehold.
She identified what she known as Neely’s final “purposeful movement” — a ultimate wrestle to flee the chokehold — earlier than his physique stopped transferring by itself.
At that time, he’d been within the grasp for greater than 5 minutes, and Penny continued to carry onto his neck for 51 seconds after, in accordance with video proof.
As jurors watched journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez’s footage, Harris additionally picked out a second, seconds later, the place Neely’s toes slowly launch stress and switch upward.
These have been among the final, involuntary actions of a dying man, she testified.
“Watch the feet,” she advised the jury.
“That, to me, looks like the twitchings that you see around death.”
The physician then described one other second seconds after Penny let Neely go, wherein Neely seems to arch his again whereas mendacity on the ground of the uptown F prepare on the Broadway-Lafayette station.
“That’s not breathing,” she testified, underneath questioning by prosecutors.
“That’s not voluntary. That’s the sign of a brain dying.”
Harris additionally defined why arriving cops at first detected a faint pulse on Neely, earlier than the heartbeat vanished quickly after.
Neely was successfully “brain dead” on the time, and somebody’s mind “dies” earlier than their coronary heart provides out, she testified.
“That makes perfect sense,” she advised jurors. “It doesn’t shock me in any respect that he has a pulse.
“The brain dies first, the brain is the most sensitive organ in the body to oxygen,” she continued.
“Deprived of oxygen for a long period of time, the brain will die.”
“He had a functioning heart in a dying body,” Harris mentioned.
Harris’ testimony could possibly be a key think about jurors’ determination over whether or not to convict Penny, 26, of “recklessly” killing Neely, 30, after Neely menaced and threatened prepare passengers earlier than the Could 1, 2023 confrontation.
Jurors on Friday additionally noticed pictures of Neely’s corpse, which Harris testified confirmed bruising and crushed blood vessels – often known as “hemorrhages” – in his neck, brought on by a “considerable amount of constrictive, squeezing force.”
“It’s my medical opinion that there are no alternative reasonable explanations for Mr Neely’s death,” she advised jurors.
Penny’s attorneys have argued that his actions have been justified to restrain Neely, whose “unhinged” and “belligerent” rant was so horrifying, in accordance with one witness, that she moved her stroller in entrance of her 5-year-old to guard him.
Penny, a Marine veteran who had been residing within the Decrease East Aspect and finding out structure at Brooklyn’s Metropolis Tech faculty on the time of the episode, advised detectives on the evening of Neely’s demise that he stepped in to guard ladies and kids he believed have been in danger.
“I wasn’t trying to kill the guy. I was just trying to de-escalate the situation,” Penny mentioned in the course of the videotaped interrogation proven to the jurors.
Prosecutors have lauded Penny’s preliminary intent to restrain Neely, however say the crime occurred when Penny “went too far” in maintaining Neely within the maintain after practically the entire passengers had left the prepare automotive, and after the homeless man handed out.
Penny is charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent murder.
He faces as much as 15 years in jail if convicted on the highest cost, however prosecutors haven’t mentioned how stiff of a sentence they’d search if Penny is convicted.
The trial resumes Monday.
