When the jury voted to acquit Daniel Penny yesterday morning, we can be pretty sure that their verdict came as a big shock to Alvin Bragg, Dafna Yoran, and the rest of the Manhattan DA’s office. That’s because on Friday — just a few days ago — the jury announced that it couldn’t come to a unanimous verdict on Count 1, which is manslaughter. That meant that at least one juror was committed to voting “guilty” on the most serious charge. Nothing could change that juror’s mind, supposedly.
Logically speaking, that meant there was no conceivable way that the jury would ever vote unanimously to acquit Daniel Penny on Count 2, which was criminally negligent homicide. After all, Count 2 was a “lesser-included” charge. It’s not possible that Penny could have committed manslaughter, without also being criminally negligent as well. So if at least one juror was sure that Penny committed…
