NEW YORK – Dr. Satish Chundru, a Texas forensic pathologist working for Daniel Penny’s protection as he fights costs for the subway chokehold loss of life of Jordan Neely, returned to the witness stand Friday for a second day of grilling.
Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran and structure pupil, grabbed the 30-year-old Neely in the midst of a schizophrenic, drug-fueled outburst on a subway automobile that witnesses stated included loss of life threats and had them fearing for his or her lives. Though Neely nonetheless had a pulse when Penny let go, he later died.
Opposite to the official post-mortem report carried out by Dr. Cynthia Harris of the New York Metropolis Medical Examiner’s Workplace, Chundru testified that he doesn’t imagine a chokehold induced Neely’s loss of life.
DANIEL PENNY DEFENSE CALLS FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST TO WITNESS STAND: ‘THE CHOKEHOLD DID NOT CAUSE THE DEATH’
Dr. Satish Chundru leaves the courtroom throughout a recess in Daniel Penny’s New York Metropolis manslaughter trial at Manhattan Supreme Courtroom in New York Metropolis on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox Information Digital)
Throughout a grueling cross-examination, Assistant Manhattan District Lawyer Dafna Yoran grilled Dr. Chundru on the connection between sickle cell trait and loss of life in different circumstances, prompting repeated objections from the protection.
At one level, Choose Maxwell Wiley lower her off and stated “we’re not doing that.” However the questioning continued by way of extra objections earlier than the court docket went to recess.
Earlier than jurors returned, the protection argued that Yoran improperly introduced up the time period “murder,” a misstep that occurred earlier within the trial as effectively.
Wiley stated he didn’t wish to strike the back-and-forth. When the jury returned, he advised them that “murder” means one thing completely different to a health worker than it does to a lawyer or a jury and requested them to not weigh the witness’ use of that phrase when weighing information of the case.
Daniel Penny walks within the hallway of Manhattan Supreme Courtroom on Tuesday, November 19, 2024. Penny, a Marine veteran, is charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent murder within the 2023 loss of life of Jordan Neely on a New York Metropolis subway practice. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox Information Digital)
It was the second time that the phrase “murder” got here up controversially and prompted the protection to boost an objection. Earlier this week, Wiley ordered the primary remark stricken, when Dr. Harris talked about that “all murder stories” had been reviewed by one other physician within the metropolis health worker’s workplace.
Not all homicides are prison, and the protection argued that the prosecution’s repeated espousal of the phrase may confuse the jury.
The protection requested the court docket to notice for the document that they’ve had a number of conversations, and the DA’s workplace agreed that mentioning testimony from forensic pathologists concerning loss of life as a “murder” can be deceptive to the jury.
The primary time, it got here from Dr. Harris. The second, the protection stated Yoran stated the phrase as a part of her questioning. She denied it. The choose stated he would evaluate the transcript later and difficulty further jury directions if mandatory.
Jordan Neely is pictured earlier than going to see the Michael Jackson film, “That is It,” exterior the Regal Cinemas on eighth Avenue and forty second Road in Instances Sq. in New York Metropolis in 2009. (Andrew Savulich/New York Every day Information/Tribune Information Service by way of Getty Photographs)
Whereas Penny’s crew has maintained that his actions had been justified, that is not their solely line of protection, in keeping with Louis Gelormino, a New York Metropolis protection lawyer who’s intently following the case.
“One of many different defenses is, ‘Properly, I didn’t kill him. My actions weren’t the reason for loss of life,'” he advised Fox Information Digital Friday. “So sure, it doesn’t make a distinction if it was justifiable. But when his actions weren’t justifiable, the jury may additionally say, ‘Hey, [his] actions didn’t kill him. He died due to the opposite issues occurring in his physique.’ And that’s why that’s related.”
Chundru, a former Miami-area health worker who now runs a non-public observe in Texas conducting autopsies in a half-dozen counties, has testified that he didn’t imagine an air choke induced Neely’s unconsciousness and, subsequently, didn’t trigger his loss of life.
Quite, he blamed it on “the mixed results of sickle cell disaster, the schizophrenia, the battle and restraint, and the artificial marijuana.”
Dr. Cynthia Harris arrives for Daniel Penny’s trial on the Manhattan Prison Courtroom constructing in New York Metropolis on Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. Penny, a Marine veteran, is charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent murder within the 2023 loss of life of Jordan Neely on a New York Metropolis subway practice. (Adam Grey for Fox Information Digital)
Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York Metropolis health worker and main forensic pathologist, disagreed with Chundru’s testimony.
“Dr. Chundru’s testimony might have been very attention-grabbing, nevertheless it was flawed,” he advised Fox Information Digital. “He described what can occur in sickle cell illness, not what occurs in sickle cell trait, which Neely had. Eight p.c of Black individuals on this nation have sickle trait, which is a benign medical situation that not often causes any signs, not to mention loss of life.”
On the post-mortem, Harris discovered vital “sickling” on Neely’s organs, she testified, and attorneys on each side requested for a proof. She stated the situation didn’t contribute to Neely’s loss of life, and she or he blamed it solely on asphyxiation from the chokehold.
“Sickle trait pink blood cells do sickle after loss of life, when the physique’s oxygen provide disappears and will be seen at post-mortem – as with Neely or with anybody with sickle trait dying from any situation,” Baden stated. “It is a autopsy artifact like rigor mortis. Additional, loss of life from sickle illness takes days of sickling to happen; it might’t happen in seconds as occurred to Neely.”
Screenshot from bystander video displaying Jordan Neely being held in a chokehold on the New York Metropolis subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez by way of Storyful)
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Nevertheless, he stated, even when the chokehold induced Neely’s loss of life, it isn’t as much as the health worker to resolve whether or not that was prison.
“The person circumstances are essential as as to if the loss of life may [or] ought to have been prevented, and whether or not the loss of life ought to be prosecuted, which is fully as much as the prosecutor,” he stated.
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Penny faces as much as 15 years in jail if convicted on the highest cost of manslaughter. He additionally faces a cost of criminally negligent murder.
It was not instantly clear whether or not he would take the stand in his personal protection, though some specialists have steered it’s doubtless that he’ll as a result of it’s a self-defense case.
