Jordan Neely died from former Marine’s chokehold, medical examiner testifies

The medical examiner who conducted Jordan Neely’s autopsy testified Friday that the homeless man’s lone cause of death was from the chokehold applied by Daniel Penny, a former Marine on trial for manslaughter after he subdued a menacing Neely aboard a Manhattan subway train last year.

Medical examiner Cynthia Harris said “there are no alternative reasonable explanations for Mr. Neely’s death” during her testimony. She added that police officers detecting a faint pulse from the 30-year-old at the scene doesn’t contradict her medical opinion.

“This is an asphyxial death. So in asphyxial death, for lack of a better way of putting it, the brain dies first,” Ms. Harris said on the witness stand.

She said a pulse can last for about 10 minutes in those situations, which indicates that Neely had a “normal functioning heart in a dying body.”

Ms. Harris emphasized her ruling by saying the chokehold would have been the cause of Neely’s death even if he had “enough fentanyl in his system to put down an elephant.”

The defense team for Daniel Penny, 26, has argued that Neely had the synthetic cannabinoid K2 in his system at the time of the fatal May 2023 encounter.

But prosecutors have said he died from the nearly six-minute chokehold Mr. Penny put Neely in after the vagrant began raving about being hungry and willing to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The case has captured national attention as Mr. Penny is portrayed either as a good Samaritan who confronted a dangerous man during a manic episode, or as a racist vigilante who took the law into his own hands. Mr. Penny is White, and Neely was Black.    

Some passengers aboard the F train previously testified that Neely’s rant was “satanic” and that his behavior “scared the living daylights” out of them.

Others have said they weren’t alarmed by Neely’s outburst, and a man who helped Mr. Penny restrain Neely testified that he thought the former Marine held the chokehold for too long.      

Prosecutors showed video of Neely going limp In Mr. Penny’s hold.

Ms. Harris, the medical examiner, pointed out that Neely’s feet twitched at one point during the video, which she said is indicative of a person dying.

If found guilty, Mr. Penny faces up to 15 years behind bars.

The trial resumes on Monday.