Jury revisits key videos in NYC subway chokehold death trial

NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors asked Wednesday to review police and bystander video at the heart of the chokehold manslaughter case against Daniel Penny as his lawyers complained that the Marine veteran was being harassed outside the New York City courthouse.

On the second day of deliberations, the anonymous jury also asked to rehear part of a city medical examiner’s testimony. The request included her testimony about issuing a death certificate without getting toxicology test results for Jordan Neely, the agitated subway rider whom Penny held around the neck for roughly six minutes.

Penny has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Prosecutors say he recklessly squeezed Neely’s neck too hard and for too long. Penny's defense maintains he was justified in acting to protect fellow subway riders from Neely, whose erratic behavior and ominous words were frightening passengers.

Jurors sought a second look at a bystander’s video that captured much of the restraint; responding officers’ body camera videos; and police video of Penny’s subsequent station house interview with detectives.

A major aspect of Penny's defense entails contesting the city medical examiner's office's determination that the chokehold killed Neely.

In part of the testimony jurors reheard Wednesday, city medical examiner Dr. Cynthia Harris said Neely’s autopsy, the bystander’s video and investigative findings gave her all the information she needed.

“No toxicological result imaginable was going to change my opinion,” she said, even if they showed “enough fentanyl to put down an elephant.”

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid that caused an estimated 75,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. last year. Neely was ultimately found to have a different drug — synthetic marijuana, often known by the street name K2 — in his system when he died. Harris testified that deaths from K2 overdoses are very rare, particularly in people with normal hearts, as Neely had.

A pathologist hired by the defense testified that Neely died from a mix of schizophrenia, K2 use, a genetic condition and his struggle with Penny.

Witnesses said Neely boarded a train in Manhattan on May 1, 2023, started moving erratically, yelling about his hunger and thirst, and proclaiming that he was ready to die, go to jail or — as Penny and some other passengers recalled — kill.

Penny came up behind Neely, grabbed his neck and head, and took him to the floor. The veteran later told police he “just put him in a chokehold” and “put him out” to ensure he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

The case has stirred debate about public safety, societal responses to mental illness and homelessness, the line between self-defense and aggression, and the role of race in all of it. Penny is white, while Neely was Black.

A few protesters have routinely gathered outside the courthouse to decry Penny as he comes and goes. Some Penny supporters also have appeared, sometimes holding a flag.

Defense lawyer Thomas Kenniff said in court Wednesday that at one point during the trial, a protester followed Penny to a waiting car and banged on the doors. Then, the attorney said, the same man hurled “violent” slurs at Penny when he arrived Wednesday.

An Associated Press journalist witnessed a person making a crude and taunting remark to Penny as Penny made his way to court.

Kenniff said the man sometimes had been in the courtroom audience, and he asked Judge Maxwell Wiley to bar the man.

Wiley — who said he'd seen the car incident from his office window — declined, noting the public's right to access court proceedings. He said court officers had occasionally “limited people's access” because of their conduct inside the courtroom, but he wasn't inclined to eject anyone over behavior outside.

Penny's lawyers also reiterated their concern that the jury might hear the protesters. Wiley noted that he has told jurors to ignore anything they might hear from outside the courtroom.

“At this point, I think that we will assume that they’re following their instructions,” the judge said.

Jurors will return Thursday to hear more of Harris' testimony and then deliberate further.

Associated Press journalists Larry Neumeister and Ted Shaffrey contributed.

Daniel Penny walks towards the courtroom, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Daniel Penny, right, walks out of the courtroom, next to Thomas Kenniff, left, his lawyer, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Daniel Penny, center, arrives at court, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Daniel Penny arrives at court, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Daniel Penny arrives at court, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House adviser Peter Navarro, who served prison time related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, will return to serve in Donald Trump’s second administration, the president-elect announced Wednesday.

Navarro, a trade adviser during Trump’s first term, will be a senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, Trump said on Truth Social. The position, Trump wrote, “leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills.”

The appointment was only the first in a flurry of announcements that Trump made on Wednesday as his presidential transition faced controversy over Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice for Pentagon chief. Hegseth faces allegations of sexual misconduct, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement, and Trump has considered replacing him with another potential nominee.

As he works to fill out his team, Trump said he wanted Paul Atkins, a financial industry veteran and an advocate for cryptocurrency, to serve as the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He wrote on Truth Social that Atkins “recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”

Trump also said he was changing course on his choice for White House counsel. He said his original pick, William McGinley, will work with the Department of Government Efficiency, which will be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with the goal of cutting federal spending. Now David Warrington, who has worked as Trump’s personal lawyer and a lawyer for his campaign, will serve as White House counsel.

In addition, Trump announced the selections of former Rep. Billy Long of Missouri as IRS commissioner; former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia to lead the Small Business Administration; Daniel Driscoll, an Army veteran who was a senior adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance, as Army secretary; Jared Isaacman, a tech billionaire who conducted the first private spacewalk on Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket, as NASA administrator; and Adam Boehler, a lead negotiator on the Abraham Accords team, as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.

Navarro was held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated Jan. 6. Sentenced to four months in prison, he described his conviction as the “partisan weaponization of the judicial system.”

Hours after his release in July, Navarro spoke on stage at the Republican National Convention, where he told the crowd that “I went to prison so you won’t have to."

Navarro, 75, has been a longtime critic of trade arrangements with China. After earning an economics doctorate from Harvard University, he worked as an economics and public policy professor at the University of California, Irvine. He ran for mayor of San Diego in 1992 and lost, only to launch other unsuccessful campaign efforts, including a 1996 race for Congress as a Democrat.

During Trump’s initial term, Navarro pushed aggressively for tariffs while playing down the risks of triggering a broader trade war. He also focused on counterfeited imports and even helped assemble an infrastructure plan for Trump that never came to fruition.

Navarro often used fiery language that upset U.S. allies. In 2018, after a dispute between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Navarro said “there’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door.”

Canadians were outraged, and Navarro later apologized.

Issacman has reserved two more flights with SpaceX, including as the commander of the first crew that will ride SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship, still in test flights out of Texas. He said he was honored to be nominated.

“Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he said via X.

Trump kept rolling out positions on Wednesday afternoon. He announced Gail Slater as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector.”

Slater worked for Trump’s National Economic Council during his first term, and she's been an adviser to Vance.

Trump also said Michael Faulkender would serve as deputy treasury secretary. A professor at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, Faulkender was the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for economic policy during Trump’s initial term. He has also been the chief economist at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank formed to further the Trump movement’s policy agenda.

Outside the White House, Trump said that he had asked Michael Whatley to remain on as chair of the Republican National Committee. Whatley ran the committee during the election along with Lara Trump, the wife of Trump’s son Eric.

AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington and Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

FILE - Adam Boehler, CEO of U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House, April 14, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Commander Jared Isaacman speaks at a news conference after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center for an upcoming private human spaceflight mission in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - Peter Navarro raises his fist while speaking during the Republican National Convention, July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Peter Navarro speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a faith event at the Concord Convention Center, Oct. 21, 2024, in Concord, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Peter Navarro speaks during the Republican National Convention, July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)