A jury has been seated to hear the subway chokehold case against Daniel Penny with opening statements scheduled for Friday.
The jury is comprised of seven women and five men, including four people of color. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office filed a motion accusing the defense of eliminating certain potential jurors based on race. At the time, the defense used their challenges to strike at least 10 people of color.
Prosecutors cited a Black woman with purple hair that defense attorneys struck after pointing out the hair color as among the reasons they wanted her off the jury.
Jury selection began more than a week ago in the manslaughter trial of Penny, a Marine veteran who put a man acting erratically in a New York City subway car into a fatal chokehold.
Penny pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
Witnesses say the man, Jordan Neely, had been shouting and demanding money when Penny approached him on May 1, 2023.
That’s when Penny moved to restrain him, pinned the man to the floor of an NYC train with the help of two other passengers, and placed him in a chokehold until his body went limp.