Daniel Penny, acquitted in the subway chokehold death of a homeless man threatening riders on a subway train, spoke to Fox News for his first interview since the not guilty verdict.

"The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt. If he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself," Penny said. "I'll take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed."

The 26-year-old’s belief that he was justified in putting Neely in a chokehold was key to his defense’s hard-won acquittal.

Now, trial observers are crediting the defense's strategy in getting the jurors hung on a manslaughter charge against the former marine,and ultimately, finding him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

"It was foundational to just keep the jury thinking this was a good man, doing the right thing, for the right reasons," retired judge George Grasso, who sat in on part of the trial, said.

The prosecutors' own witnesses, the subway riders on the Manhattan F train with Penny and Neely, helped the defense.

"They put in a lot of evidence of people on the train who were terrified, who were petrified, who were thankful and grateful to Mr. Penny," Grasso said.

The defense was also helped by Judge Maxwell Wiley's decision to allow Neely’s psychological records to come into evidence, along with the defense team’s expert witness — a forensic psychiatrist who reviewed those records.

Judge Wiley wrote in his decision that "the potential manifestations of psychosis or intoxication.... are relevant to the physical attributes of Mr. Neely at the time of the incident" — information that was relevant to the justification defense.

For Donte Mills, the Neely family attorney, the prosecutors handled the case well.

"i think the prosecution did a phenomenal job on this case," Mills said. "They made it clear that this is not about race. This is a case about whether or not Daniel Penny took it too far."

In a statement after the verdict, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that this was a case suited for a jury of Penny's peers.

"There are times certainly when I was a prosecutor that our decision was, let's leave it in the hands of the jury, let the jury be the ultimate decider as to whether or not an individual is guilty. So they presented their case, they lost," Julie Rendelman, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, said. "The question remains whether or not this case should have brought in the first place." 

Meanwhile, Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, filed a wrongful death suit against Penny. The Neely family attorney said the not guilty verdict will have no bearing on this civil suit.