Jurors began answering questions about their backgrounds and potential biases Friday in the trial of a white U.S. Marine Corps veteran charged with killing a troubled Black man on a subway train last year.
Following days of pre-screening to excuse people who couldn't serve because of work or family duties, this next round of questioning aims to choose the Manhattanites who will decide the manslaughter case against Daniel Penny, 25.
He put Jordan Neely in a chokehold that, medical examiners said, killed him. Prosecutors say Penny's move was reckless and unwarranted. His lawyers have said he was just trying to subdue Neely, who was behaving erratically and making remarks that Penny and some witnesses recalled as threatening.
Judge Maxwell Wiley on Friday began asking prospective jurors standard questions, such as their neighborhood and line of work, but also about whether they or anyone close to them has been in the military, has experience in martial arts or wrestling, or has dealt with drug addiction or homelessness. They also were asked how often they use the subway and whether they’ve witnessed any outbursts there.
The case has become a crucible for opinions about public safety, mental illness, the line between intervening 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.
Neely, 30, 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, and he testified at her boyfriend’s murder trial five years later.
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.
Some would later tell police, in comments recorded on officers' body cameras, that riders were frightened when he made sudden movements and statements about being willing to die or go to jail. But at least one passenger described Neely's behavior as "like another day, typically, in New York,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
Penny, for his part, told officers that Neely said, “I’m going to kill everybody," according to police video played in court. Concerned that Neely presented an actual threat, Penny said, he approached the man from behind and put an arm around his neck and throat.
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.
“I put him out,” Penny told an officer at the scene. He 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 Neely died from compression of the neck.
Neely's family and supporters have said he was only appealing for help, not menacing anyone.
Donte Mills, a lawyer for Neely’s father, has summed up the case this way: “Someone got on the train and was screaming, and someone choked that person to death.”
“Those things will never balance out, and there’s no justification that can make those things balance out,” Mills said outside court Monday.
Penny's lawyers have indicated they plan to argue that Penny 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.
When the first group of potential jurors came into court Monday for pre-screening, nearly all raised hands when asked whether they'd heard of the case.
“Even if you have formed an opinion about it, that does not disqualify you from serving on this case,” Judge Maxwell Wiley told them, but he reminded them that jurors must be open to the possibility that the evidence will change their views.
It’s unclear how long it will take to select the jurors, whose names will not be released to the public.
