Jordan Neely killing/Daniel Penny charges

I suspect there is going to be a defense argument of some sort that he didn't know it might / could kill someone. I don't know what they will come up with to that effect, but I strongly suspect it's going to be something like: 1) The U.S. government trained him in the maneuver, 2) They taught him that it's a way to disable someone, 3) They didn't teach that there is a significant risk of death involved.

We all know that there is a significant risk of death, it's why police forces have banned chokeholds, but I totally wouldn't be surprised if the defense is going to try to put the blame on the marines / U.S. government, which apparently is still teaching chokeholds in basic training even after others have banned it.

 

That story reads like a moral argument. It doesn't address the legal issue. He's going to be arguing that he wasn't reckless and taking an unjustifiable risk to human life (the element that would make it manslaughter). That story doesn't address precisely what the marines taught him about chokeholds and the risk of them causing death, which is what matters in the courtroom.

We all know that chokeholds are dangerous. We know that the DOJ outlawed them two years ago for federal law enforcement agencies because they were too often leading to tragedy, and they said they are inherently dangerous. But that is precisely why I think that his defense will try to suggest that despite that knowledge, the marines still teach it as a way to subdue someone, not as a method of inflicting deadly force. Which if argued that way would be, "Neely couldn't have been acting recklessly based on what he knew. Blame it on the U.S. government / marines."