Former Marine Daniel Penny, who has been indicted for strangling homeless man Jordan Neely to death on a New York City subway last May, will go on trial for manslaughter on Oct. 8, a Manhattan judge said Wednesday.
The proceedings will likely last about four weeks — although they could run as long as six, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley said during the hearing.
Penny — who wore a charcoal suit, white shirt and maroon tie — did not offer a comment as he left the courtroom alongside his attorneys.
But outside, the lawyer representing the Neely family said his clients are “still suffering, they’re still in pain.”
“Justice has not been served yet, but we’re expecting, we’re holding onto the belief that justice will be done in this case,” attorney Lennon Edwards said, adding that the family hopes the trial will give the public a “view of what Daniel Penny really was that day.”
“He was the dangerous one,” the lawyer added. “On that day, Daniel Penny was judge, jury and executioner. And we’re expecting that when this trial starts, he will be facing a judge, a jury and a sentence.”
Penny, a former infantry squad leader, was indicted on charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the caught-on-camera, lightning-rod May 2023 killing that left Neely dead on the floor of a Manhattan F train.
Penny’s attorneys had tried to get the case dismissed in October, claiming there were issues with the prosecutors’ instructions to the grand jury and that the city medical examiner never conclusively established that Penny’s actions killed the homeless man during the struggle.
But Wiley batted that away, ruling the examiner’s testimony and Neely’s death certificate were more than enough to “establish that defendant’s actions caused the death of Neely.”