Penny was acquitted this morning, and pretty quickly. Readers may recall that on Friday jurors told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked on the manslaughter charge, so the judge — over the objections of the defense (which objections’ basis would have been fertile grounds for appeal) — allowed the jury to consider a lesser charge of negligent homicide, which still carried a potentially stiff, if much lesser, penalty on conviction.
Some are asking how the jurors could have failed on convict on the lesser charge if they were deadlocked on the manslaughter charge, assuming they could get to unanimity on a lesser charge. But there’s a plausible explanation. If the there was a single holdout to convict on the manslaughter charge, that juror may have expected to pick up support on the lesser charge. But if that didn’t happen, the juror may have simply tired of fighting the other 11 jurors and/or may have realized that a mistrial would likely have meant the end of the case, as it’s debatable (doubtful, actually) whether Alvin Bragg would have retried Penny. Sentiment in NYC appeared to be very strong against Bragg having brought the case in the first place (evidenced by the comments on NYT’s story today and when the case was brought), and I doubt Bragg would have expended more taxpayer funds on a case he seemed bound to lose.
NYT Link