Subway Good Samaritan Penny Has Strong Defense in NYC Trial

WASHINGTON - Oct. 22, 2024 - PRLog -- A former marine who risked his own safety to protect other more vulnerable passengers from threats from a violent mentally unstable man, with a criminal record for violent assaults including several on the subway, is now on trial in New York City for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

But the law professor whose legal analysis (http://banzhaf.net/by/GoetzDefense.html) helped keep Subway Shooter Bernhard Goetz out of jail insists that the defendant, Daniel Perry, is a good samaritan and not a vigilante, and that he has an even stronger legal defense under the laws of New York; especially since, unlike Goetz, Perry risked his own safety to protect not himself but others.

To permit if not encourage individuals to go to the aid of their fellow citizens, the law permits them to use reasonable force not only against perceived threats of death or serious injury, but rather against any perceived threats of any use of "unlawful physical force."

Moreover, so that people need not fear arrest or a lawsuit if they make an honest mistake about the need to use force to protect others, the statute requires only that their belief in the need to use force be a "reasonable" one; not necessarily the best or only one, or even the one many other people might claim they would have employed under the circumstances.

And, says Banzhaf, the best evidence that Penny's belief was not an unreasonable one are the actions of other passengers who were present at the time, and therefore could best understand and knowledgeably evaluate the situation.

Witnesses said he had been demanding money while making what they perceived to be threats, such as "someone is going to die today," and that he was "ready to go to Rikers" and "ready to do life. Passenger described Neely's shouts and "insanely threatening" and "satanic.  One frequent subway rider said that she had encountered many things on the train, "but nothing that put fear in me like that."

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf