Jury selection began in Manhattan Monday in the manslaughter case against Daniel Penny, the former Marine accused of recklessly putting homeless man Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on a subway train.
Penny, 24, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the May 1, 2023, incident that played out between two stops on an uptown F train, denying he fatally subdued the 30-year-old Neely without good reason.
He has claimed he sprung into action when Neely, a one-time Michael Jackson tribute artist who was homeless at the time and battling untreated schizophrenia, threatened the lives of passengers aboard the subway car.
Nearly every one of the first batch of 86 prospective jurors shot their hands up Monday morning when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley asked if they’d heard about the polarizing case that prompted fierce debates about mental illness, public safety, and vigilantism.
“Almost everybody. Not a surprise,” Wiley said. “Even if you have formed an opinion about it, that does not disqualify you from serving on this case … If you have formed an opinion on this case, you have to be prepared to change it.”
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Wiley read a list of more than 60 people who may testify during the trial, which is expected to last six weeks, or whose names may otherwise come up. Among those included were passengers who were aboard the subway when the chokehold occurred, NYPD detectives and officers from the Fifth Precinct, and various medical professionals.
By lunchtime, Wiley had excused 58 people called in for jury duty. He told 28 to return on Friday at 10 a.m., when they’re expected to face a grilling from prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Penny’s lawyers about their experiences riding the subway in New York City.
Currently out on a $100,000 bond, Penny wore a navy blue suit and a maroon tie on the first day of his trial. He waved to the prospective panelists and said, “Good morning,” shortly after the proceedings began.
The former infantry squad leader, who was studying architecture in Brooklyn at the time of the incident, has claimed he boarded the train at Jay St.-MetroTech and intervened when Neely got on at Second Ave., threw down his jacket and started screaming.
Prosecutors do not allege Penny intended to kill Neely. But they say he behaved recklessly by placing him in a lethal chokehold for at least six minutes and disregarded signs he was putting Neely’s life at risk — including “well past the point” Neely stopped moving and after passengers had disembarked the train car at Broadway-Lafayette.
The 12 Manhattanites and six alternates ultimately selected to decide the case are expected to hear testimony from passengers who witnessed the incident, much of which was captured in cellphone footage by bystanders, and detectives who interviewed Penny in the immediate aftermath. It’s unclear whether Penny plans to take the stand in his defense.
When they testified before a grand jury last year, multiple passengers related that Neely boarded the train and loudly expressed that he was “homeless, hungry, and thirsty,” and willing “to go to jail or prison.”
Accounts differed on the threat level Neely truly posed.
In court documents, the prosecution has highlighted the perspective of passengers who believed his outburst was “common” of people they’d witnessed in crisis while riding the trains, and that nobody accused him of putting his hands on anyone or bearing a weapon.
Neely’s defense attorneys, in turn, have focused on accounts by passengers who deemed it out of the ordinary, including one woman who testified that nobody had ever “put fear into” her like Neely.
This story will be updated.
