NEW YORK – Dr. Satish Chundru, a Texas forensic pathologist working for Daniel Penny’s protection as he fights fees for the subway chokehold dying of Jordan Neely, returned to the witness stand Friday for a second day of grilling.
Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran and structure scholar, grabbed the 30-year-old Neely in the course of a schizophrenic, drug-fueled outburst on a subway automotive that witnesses stated included dying 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 consider a chokehold prompted Neely’s dying.
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 dying in different circumstances, prompting repeated objections from the protection.
At one level, Decide Maxwell Wiley reduce her off and stated “we’re not doing that.” However the questioning continued by means 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 “homicide,” a misstep that occurred earlier within the trial as nicely.
Wiley stated he didn’t wish to strike the back-and-forth. When the jury returned, he informed them that “homicide” means one thing totally 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 details 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 dying 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 “homicide” 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 homicide reports” have 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 might 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 relating to dying as a “homicide” could 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 overview the transcript later and situation further jury directions if obligatory.
Jordan Neely is pictured earlier than going to see the Michael Jackson film, “This is It,” outdoors the Regal Cinemas on eighth Avenue and forty second Road in Instances Sq. in New York Metropolis in 2009. (Andrew Savulich/New York Day by day Information/Tribune Information Service by way of Getty Photos)
Whereas Penny’s crew has maintained that his actions have been justified, that is not their solely line of protection, based on Louis Gelormino, a New York Metropolis protection legal professional who’s carefully following the case.
“One of the other defenses is, ‘Well, I didn’t kill him. My actions weren’t the cause of death,'” he informed Fox Information Digital Friday. “So yes, it doesn’t make a difference if it was justifiable. But if his actions weren’t justifiable, the jury could also say, ‘Hey, [his] actions didn’t kill him. He died because of the other things going on in his body.’ And that’s why that’s relevant.”
Chundru, a former Miami-area health worker who now runs a non-public apply in Texas conducting autopsies in a half-dozen counties, has testified that he didn’t consider an air choke prompted Neely’s unconsciousness and, subsequently, didn’t trigger his dying.
Slightly, he blamed it on “the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana.”
Dr. Cynthia Harris arrives for Daniel Penny’s trial on the Manhattan Felony 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 dying 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 may have been very interesting, but it was wrong,” he informed Fox Information Digital. “He described what can happen in sickle cell disease, not what happens in sickle cell trait, which Neely had. Eight percent of Black people in this country have sickle trait, which is a benign medical condition that rarely causes any symptoms, let alone death.”
On the post-mortem, Harris discovered important “sickling” on Neely’s organs, she testified, and legal professionals on either side requested for a proof. She stated the situation didn’t contribute to Neely’s dying, and he or she blamed it solely on asphyxiation from the chokehold.
“Sickle trait red blood cells do sickle after death, when the body’s oxygen supply disappears and can be seen at autopsy – as with Neely or with anyone with sickle trait dying from any condition,” Baden stated. “It’s a post-mortem artifact like rigor mortis. Further, death from sickle disease takes days of sickling to occur; it can’t occur in seconds as happened to Neely.”
Screenshot from bystander video exhibiting Jordan Neely being held in a chokehold on the New York Metropolis subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez by way of Storyful)
Nevertheless, he stated, even when the chokehold prompted Neely’s dying, it’s not as much as the health worker to resolve whether or not that was prison.
“The individual circumstances are important as to whether the death could [or] should have been avoided, and whether the death should be prosecuted, which is entirely up to 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 consultants have recommended it’s doubtless that he’ll as a result of it’s a self-defense case.
