Daniel Penny trial jury asks for footage, testimony as it deliberates verdict
ABC
(NEW YORK) — The jury has requested to receive two readbacks and several pieces of footage as they continue to deliberate in the subway chokehold death trial of Daniel Penny.
Little more than an hour into deliberations on Tuesday, the jury asked for a readback of a portion of the judge’s instructions on the law. The jury is interested in the part about justified use of force.
They also asked for several pieces of video on Wednesday, including police body camera footage, Penny’s interrogation video, and a bystander’s video.
The jury also asked for a readback of the cross-examination of the city medical examiner who concluded that Penny’s chokehold killed Neely.
The medical examiner, the final witness for the prosecution, found that Neely died from compression to the neck and never wavered from her view under intense cross-examination.
The defense countered her conclusion, suggesting public sentiment about the case had influenced her findings and that Neely died of other factors.
The jury requested the definitions of criminal negligence and recklessness on Thursday. They also requested to see two bystander videos — one of which they had already seen — capturing the moments when Penny placed Neely in a chokehold. Wiley allowed the jury to access a laptop with the videos so they could watch the requested videos as many times as they’d like.
The jury — comprised of seven women and five men — is considering whether to convict Penny of manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, on a New York City subway train.
To convict, prosecutors have told the jury that Penny’s use of lethal force must be considered unjustifiable and that Penny acted recklessly and consciously disregarded the substantial risk of putting Neely in the chokehold for so long. Defense attorneys told the jury that Penny was only trying to protect subway passengers.
Defense attorneys also said that Penny never intended to kill Neely, while prosecutors said they do not have to prove Penny intended to kill Neely to have the jury hand down a guilty verdict.
Read the key takeaways presented to the jury during the weekslong trial here.
(Delphi, IND.) — Delphi, Indiana, murder suspect Richard Allen allegedly confessed to the crime in multiple jail phone calls to his wife, which were played for the jury on Thursday.
In one call, Allen told his wife, Kathy, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said. Allen replied, “Yes, I did.”
“Why would you say that?” Kathy said. “I know you didn’t. There’s something wrong.”
In another call, Allen told his wife, “I think maybe I’ve lost my mind. … I need you to know I did this.”
She replied, “No, you haven’t. You’re unwell.”
Allen is accused of killing Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams 13, on a hiking trail in February 2017. He’s pleaded not guilty to murder.
In a separate call, Allen said to his wife, “If I get the electric chair or the death penalty, will you be there for me? I killed Abby and Libby.”
In another call, Allen said, “I did it, Kathy. I did it. Do you still love me?”
She replied, “Yes, I do. But you didn’t do it.”
“I don’t want to upset you. I’m sorry,” Allen told his wife. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I’ve lost my mind.”
“I feel like I’m already in hell,” he told her later in the call. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Allen also allegedly confessed to corrections officers and a prison psychologist, according to their testimonies. But Allen’s mental state while in custody has come into question.
A psychologist testified this week that Allen could be classified as having serious mental illness. Allen was in solitary confinement for 13 months, which she said can be detrimental to a person’s mental health.
The psychologist said she believed Allen suffered from “situational psychosis” in jail. She said Allen would have episodes of psychosis and then it would go into remission.
Allen’s strange behavior in custody included hitting his head on the wall, washing his face in the toilet, refusing food, eating paper, smearing feces in his cell and putting feces on his face for two hours, according to testimony from corrections officers.
On the day of the murders, Libby and Abby saw a man behind them on the bridge, and Libby started recording on her phone, prosecutors said. The man — known as “bridge guy,” from the video of his voice released to the public — pulled out a gun and ordered the girls to go “down the hill,” prosecutors said.
Indiana State Police trooper Brian Harshman, who said he listened to 700 of Allen’s calls and monitored his texts and video chats, testified Thursday that after listening to the calls, he believes Allen is the voice on Libby’s “bridge guy” video.
The psychologist testified that Allen told her he ordered the girls “down the hill” and intended to rape them, but then he saw something — either a person or a van — and was startled.
Harshman told the jurors he believed Allen was startled by a van belonging to resident Brad Weber. Weber, who lives near the crime scene, owns a 2000 Ford Econoline van. Harshman said the time it would’ve taken Weber to drive home from work fits with the timing of the murders.
Defense attorney Brad Rozzi said police never investigated how many vans were registered in the county at the time of the murders. Rozzi also noted that numerous people were suspected of being the man in the “bridge guy” video, including Weber.
(PITTSBURG,, P.A.) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday commemorated six years since the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.
“This unspeakable act – fueled by antisemitic hate – was the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in our Nation’s history,” Harris said in a statement, in part.
On Oct. 27, 2018, a white supremacist gunman opened fire inside the synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, killing 11 people and wounding six others during Shabbat services.
In her statement Sunday, Harris mourned the lives that were taken that day and also hailed the resiliency and enduring strength of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. She also noted the rise in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and vowed to continue to combat antisemitism.
“I will always work to ensure the safety and security of Jewish people in the United States and around the world, and will always call out antisemitism whenever and wherever we see it,” Harris said. “Doug and I are proud to have worked alongside President Biden to combat antisemitism, including through the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.”
“Today, Doug and I stand in solidarity with the survivors of this attack, the families who lost loved ones, and the entire Jewish community,” Harris added, referring to her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Earlier Sunday, President Joe Biden also marked the anniversary of the Tree of Life attack, saying in a statement that the shootings “shattered families, pierced the heart of the Jewish community, and struck the soul of our nation.”
“For the families of the victims and the survivors, this difficult day of remembrance brings it all back like it just happened – and our country holds them and their loved ones close in our hearts,” Biden added.
Biden said his administration remains committed to aggressively implementing the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
“As the Talmud says, ‘It is not your duty to finish the work but neither are you at liberty to neglect it,'” Biden said in the statement. “On this solemn day of remembrance for the attack in the Tree of Life Synagogue, let us come together as Americans to ensure antisemitism and hate in all its forms have no safe harbor in America – for all the lives we have lost and all those we can still save.”
(CECIL TOWNSHIP, Pa.) — Fracking has been on the national stage this election season and swing state Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes in play, is at the center of the issue with one the largest natural gas deposits in the U.S.
Eight years ago, Michelle Stonemark built her dream home in Cecil Township, Pennsylvania, on the same street as much of her extended family. She was followed by some new neighbors — a fracking operation.
As the Stonemarks’ home was under construction, a natural gas company built a well pad for oil and gas production just a few feet away.
“I was scared to death. I was scared about what harms it would cause us,” she told ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos.
It’s a significant industry in Pennsylvania, but there is precedent for states banning fracking — it’s happened in California, Maryland, New York, Vermont and Washington.
Only Congress has the power to completely ban fracking, but presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris see it as a topic that resonates with voters in the Keystone State.
Former President Trump says Harris is against the practice.
“Starting on Day One of my new administration, I will end Kamala Harris’ war on Pennsylvania energy,” he said at an Oct. 26 rally. “And we will frack, frack, frack.”
In 2019, when Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, she firmly stood for a ban on fracking. During a CNN town hall on climate change in 2019 when she was still a senator, Harris said, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
Now, Vice President Harris has positioned herself as a supporter of fracking. Harris reiterated that she would not ban fracking during the ABC News Presidential Debate.
“I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States,” she said during September’s ABC News debate. “And, in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.”
The Stonemarks documented the experience of living so close to an active fracking operation, with video showing flames shooting into the sky in the middle of the night as excess natural gas was burned off.
Their windows and tools in their garage often vibrate with the hum of machinery at the nearby well pad.
“The noise that comes off of that … are low-level sounds, low-level frequencies, more like a bass that cause vibrations, more like a constant hum, the kind of noise you feel in your chest and in your ears and in your head,” Michelle Stonemark told ABC. “We suffered from headaches and nosebleeds during that time.”
In Cecil Township, there’s legislation that would require new fracking operations to be placed at least 5,000 feet away from schools and 2,500 feet away from homes. The current minimum distance is 500 feet. The city council passed the resolution on Monday night.
Stonemark supports the legislation, but it may not change her situation. The family has already upgraded their air filters and installed air quality monitors outside, but she’s angry about it.
“Every day we wake up and we don’t know what we’re going to get. We don’t know how loud it’s going to be, how what it’s going to smell like outside,” she told ABC News. “[Or] If my kids can play outside; we don’t know if we can have people over.”
She’s also concerned that it’s causing health issues for the family.
“We don’t know if the nosebleed my daughter has is from fracking. We don’t know if the nausea and the headaches that we’re feeling are from fracking,” she said. “Every day is undue stress and anxiety on myself, my husband, my kids. So, yeah, it pisses me off.”
In 2023, a taxpayer-funded study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh found that children who live within one mile of unconventional natural gas development — including fracking — were found to be five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma, a type of cancer. It was also linked to adverse birth outcomes and exacerbating existing asthma symptoms.
In the race for the White House, politicians are hoping a vow to keep fracking will secure them votes. However, the issue is more complex for the people with fracking operations in their backyard. Even pro-fracking Republicans like Scott Byrd are in favor of the proposed changes.
“First of all, I’m very pro fracking,” he told ABC News. “It just has to be done in an industrial rural area.”
However, Byrd noted that neither of the candidates have offered particulars on the issue.
“I’m mainly motivated by responsibilities as a parent,” he said. “You see your two children, you have to do everything you can do to protect them.”
In a statement to ABC News, Range Resources, which runs fracking operations in Cecil Township, noted that it works closely with “municipalities and residents to foster open communication, address community concerns, and proactively minimize any potential impacts.”
However, it said that the township’s ordinance is “a stark outlier from the 50 other municipalities where Range operates, as it seeks to restrict future natural gas development within its borders.”
Byrd emphasized the need to frack safely.
“If the technology is not there to do it without hurting children, everybody else, we need to get more into research and development. We’re not just going to jump the gun,” he said. “They’re running with it and ignoring the risks. We have to do something.”
Stonewall noted that fracking is a polarizing topic, but it shouldn’t be something people are simply for or against.
“I’m neither for it or against it — I believe it has its place. I believe that we need to be an energy independent nation,” she said. “I just don’t believe that we need to be doing it at the expense of people living their everyday lives.”
