Posted on 10/30/2024 8:02:09 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office are reportedly asking the judge overseeing Daniel Penny's trial to not let witnesses call the U.S. Marine Corps veteran a "good Samaritan" or a "hero" in court, as jury selection is underway.
According to The Gothamist's reporting on an email exchange between prosecutors and Penny's defense attorneys, Assistant DA Dafna Yoran raised alarm over how witnesses could characterize the defendant after watching an interview Penny's counsel conducted on FOX 5 New York highlighting their client's heroic actions on the subway.
“Danny doesn't have to be a hero," Penny's lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, told the local outlet during a sitdown TV interview last week. "But he's someone who did the right thing. He's someone who stood up for his fellow man, for his fellow New Yorkers. He was put in a difficult situation: either cower and do nothing — when Jordan Neely is descending on a mother and her child in a baby stroller, which is part of the factual narrative of this case — or stand up and try to protect."
Yoran said the Democrat DA's office was worried that the defense might try to prompt witnesses to assess whether Penny's actions that day were warranted. Bragg's underling then asserted that witnesses shouldn't be allowed to use the terms "good Samaritan" and "hero" to describe Penny, arguing that they're subjective phrasing based on opinion.
"A witness's characterization of the defendant [as] a hero, for example, is the equivalent of a determination that the [defendant] was justified," Yoran wrote.
Rather, it should be up to the jury to decide whether Penny was justified — not the witnesses testifying about the facts, she said.
In response, Kenniff said that the witnesses who rode the subway with Penny were the ones using those words mere "minutes after this incident." Accordingly, their account of what happened should be heard in the courtroom, Kenniff countered.
"It describes what they perceived: Neely acting as the aggressor, and Mr. Penny acting to defend and protect," he replied.
As of Tuesday, with the jury selection process stretching into a second week, the judge presiding over the proceedings has yet to rule on this request.
On May 1, 2023, Penny was filmed subduing Jordan Neely, a homeless black man acting aggressively towards other passengers riding the subway, including women and children, in a chokehold lasting approximately five to six minutes. "Someone is going to die today," Neely threatened, according to witnesses. "I want to hurt people. I want to go to Rikers. I want to go to prison."
Neely later died. Penny is now facing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges over Neely's death, with prosecutors arguing that he acted recklessly resulting in this loss of life.
"I'm not trying to kill the guy," Penny told police during questioning. "I'm just trying to de-escalate the situation."
He added, "I'm just trying to keep him from hurting everyone else. That's what we learned in the Marine Corps. That's what you guys learn today as police officers."
At the start of Penny's trial, Black Lives Matter activists heckled him on his way into the courthouse, calling him a "murderer."
Donning "Malcolm X" merch, some of the "Justice for Jordan Neely" protestors held signs that accused Penny of "Racist Vigilantism" and "White Supremacist Violence." One poster demanded that the jury "Convict Daniel Penny" for "This Modern Lynching."
"This is a race thing!" BLM of Greater New York's co-founder Hawk Newsome shouted into a megaphone.
How is that not witness tampering? Now prosecutors want the wright to put words in or takes words away from witnesses for the defense. Insane!
These people are deeply evil.
SURE WISH I COULD BE ON THAT JURY.....
WOULD NEVER VOTE GUILTY.
THE GUY WHO ATTACKED the MOTHER & CHILD IS THE GARBAGE THIS COUNTRY HAS PRODUCED & SUPPORTED.
NOT the MARINE.
piano wire
The fact this is even going to trial is disgusting.
The whole prosecution is subjective and based on opinion. Once again projection.
No good deed goes unpunished.
It worked for the Chauvin trial. Witnesses were told what to say and what not to say. Witnesses were allowed to purger themselves. The judge wouldn’t allow any evidence counter to the prosecution.
And Trump’s sham prosecutions.
The justice system is dead. We are a third world s hole with a nicer view. For a while at least until it all looks like Haiti
The BLM Cancel Culture Club hasn’t got this street punk to change his name yet? He’s hurting a lot of his people by using the Confederate name, Bragg.
Voting is important but you will never hold more power to shape the country then you do when you sit on a jury. It is important that you know your rights and responsibilities as a juror and show up.
Even worse is that Penny is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
He should never have been arrested and given a heroes parade to honor him for selfless standing up for the innocents.
Ideology over truth, justice, and country.
I don't care what the prosecutor, judge or even the defense counsel say, when I'm under oath I speak the truth and nothing but the truth SO HELP ME GOD.
I do so under penalty of perjury for any false statements.
If the court doesn't like what I say either don't call me or have my testimony stricken from the record thereafter. Don't ask me questions if you don't want the answer.
Given this prior restraint I can't swear to the testimony I about to give because it is not my own.
They cannot stop a witness from saying what they saw and believed. The remedy is cross examination.
So much for being sworn in to tell the WHOLE truth.
If the defense can’t let a witness use terms like “good Samaritan” or “hero” because they are subjective in nature, then the defense just needs to ask each witness one question that has a FACTUAL answer to it:
”We’re you relieved when the defendant sprang into action as this incident unfolded, or were you alarmed?”
THE END
Well, that is the legal and admissible way to narrow testimony to the specific offense being tried. Evey criminal trial has multiple motions (motion in limine”)before trial. For some reason, people here always make a big deal about it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/motion_in_limine
1st Amendment?
1st Amendment?
We doon need no stink’n 1st Amendment in this court.
Don’t forget that NYC stayed royalist through the Revolution and even for awhile afterwards. I not sure they ever got over that.
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