Daniel Penny trial: Potential jurors in subway chokehold death asked about train use

Potential jurors' own subway-riding experiences came into focus Friday in the case against a white U.S. Marine Corps veteran charged with killing a troubled Black man on a subway train.

No jurors have yet been chosen for the manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny, who put Jordan Neely in a chokehold that, medical examiners said, killed him. But in a Manhattan case that concerns perceptions of safety in the nation's largest subway system, the jury pool so far is full of people with a mix of comfort levels with riding the trains.

Most of the roughly 20 potential panelists who underwent questioning Friday were at least occasional subway riders, and many said they’d seen people have outbursts. Some said the episodes hadn't left them feeling personally threatened or harassed, but several said they had.

One recalled an unsettling subway-riding moment years ago when he and a woman sitting near him were approach by a disheveled man who was upset that she was ignoring him. The prospective juror got off the train, he said, as another man stood up as if poised to intervene.

Another potential jury member said he'd seen things on the subway that made him nervous in recent years. A third said he hadn’t ridden the subway throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and while he wasn't afraid of the underground, he'd “heard of some criminal violence” there.

And after a prosecutor explained that Penny isn’t charged with an intentional killing and asserts he was protecting himself and other subway riders, a fourth prospective juror had had enough.

“This all seems incredibly complicated," he said, and soon after asked to be excused. His request hadn't been decided by the time court broke for the day.

Jury selection is set to continue Monday in the case, which has become a crucible for opinions about public safety, mental illness, the line between intervention and vigilantism, and the role of race in how people perceive all of it.

Some demonstrators have rallied to decry Penny, others to defend him. Some prominent Democratic officials went to Neely’s funeral, while high-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero who confronted Neely to protect others. Penny’s legal defense fund has raised millions of dollars.

Prospective members of the anonymous jury were asked whether they or their loved ones had served in the military, taken martial arts or self-defense training, or had problems with drug addiction, mental illness or homelessness.

Neely had once been familiar to some subway riders for his Michael Jackson impersonations. But relatives have said he struggled with mental health problems after his mother was killed and was found stuffed in a suitcase in 2007.

Over the years, Neely became homeless and developed a history of drug use, disruptive behavior and arrests, including a guilty plea to assaulting a stranger in 2021.

On May 1, 2023, Neely boarded a subway and began shouting and acting erratically, witnesses said.

Neely’s family and supporters have said he was only appealing for help, not menacing anyone.

Other passengers differed on whether he was a danger. Some told police he was frightening people by making sudden movements and statements about being willing to die or go to jail. Yet at least one witness described Neely's behavior as “like another day, typically, in New York,” according to a court filing.

Penny, who told officers that Neely threatened "to kill everybody,” put an arm around his neck. With two other riders helping to pin Neely to the floor, the Marine veteran held him around the neck for more than three minutes, until his body went limp.

Penny later told detectives in an interview that he was “just trying to de-escalate,” not to injure or kill Neely.

City medical examiners determined that he died from compression of the neck. Penny’s lawyers have indicated they plan to argue that he wasn’t applying pressure in a way that could have killed Neely, and that his death could have been caused by other factors, including the use of the synthetic cannabinoid known as K2.

Noting Neely's mental health problems, K2 use and conduct on the train, prosecutor Dafna Yoran probed prospective jurors about whether they might think he brought his death on himself.

“You don’t really know what the person’s going to do on K2,” one potential panelist responded, adding: “Not that I would think he deserved it.”

“Under the law, all life is equal,” the prosecutor reminded the group, emphasizing that anyone selected as a juror will have to judge the evidence, not Neely's history — or Penny's.

The 25-year-old former Marine was discharged in 2021 and has since taken college classes, his lawyers have said.

“You can be grateful” for his service, Yoran told the prospective jurors. “Can you understand that you are not here to judge the defendant as a person?”

“Law is law,” one responded. “And if the evidence proves itself correct, then it is what it is.”