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What damage? Outside of New York most people will forget about him pretty quickly. Within New York, his reputation will likely remain decidedly mixed. A felony conviction is more than damage to reputation; it legally disqualifies you from many jobs and positions. And even those it doesn't, it's a bad thing to have and many people will not hire felons.
Second degree manslaughter is a class C felony carrying a up to 15 year prison term; the classes range from A down to E.
Yeah, I know a felony conviction is bad. And sure, most people will forget about this, but from here on out absent unusual circumstances this incident will come up as soon as you type his name into Google. It's enough of an issue that even people like Monica Lewinsky who technically did nothing wrong still have problems finding employment because no one wants the attention that comes with hiring them. By charging low, I meant that in most cases like these the activists are braying for blood and couldn't care less that Man 2 is technically a serious crime; they want a murder charge but would accept a plea of Man 1. Man 2 has a 15 year max but a guy like Penny is probably getting more like 1 to 3 years given his lack of a record and the sympathetic circumstances. It would be an outrage. If what they'e charging could result in his being out of jail in a year after a jury conviction, then they have no pressure not to just use the specter of jail time as a cudgel to get him to quietly take a plea of criminally negligent homicide and a few years probation. By that point no one will care.
So while he certainly may be able to get off, it's a pretty hefty gamble to take a year in The Tombs over some easy peasy probation or suspended sentence or conditional release or whatever other deal the DA throws at him. If you're not a hardened criminal, the decision is pretty easy to make unless you have an ironclad case, which he doesn't. Goetz got off, but he was in a situation where he was actually approached by a group of people carrying potentially dangerous objects. With Penny, it's not clear if he was even in the same car while Neely went on his tirade, and he held the guy in a dangerous position much longer than can reasonably be described as necessary, especially given the publicity surrounding George Floyd. So I wouldn't say it's exactly a slam-dunk acquittal, and juries are unpredictable. You're basically trying to get the jury to sympathize with the general public's sense of order and decency, which seems fine enough until you realize that there's going to be a grieving family on the stand and in the gallery, and a prosecutor who's going to ask why he went for the guy's neck when several people were holding him down and restraining his arms and legs could have been equally effective. It's a pure crapshoot, and you don't risk prison on a crapshoot.
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Apparently he's working his way through college as a bartender -- the incident could be a benefit for a bartender job, but probably not for whatever he's up to at college.
He could maybe reenlist, depending what he pleads to?
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