The criminal trial for a white vigilante charged with choking an unarmed Black man to death on a New York City subway is set to begin nearly a year and a half after the fateful confrontation exploded during a train ride in Manhattan.

Daniel Penny, a former Marine, stands accused of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges for his deadly response to Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused street performer who was in the throes of a mental health crisis during a reported aggressive diatribe to passengers on the northbound F train.

It was in that context that jury selection was scheduled to get underway Monday morning to convene a panel of New Yorkers who will either convict or acquit Penny of crimes that carry a prison sentence of up to 19 years. The maximum prison sentence for a manslaughter conviction is 15 years, while criminally negligent homicide is punishable by up to four years.

Penny, 24, has pleaded not guilty to the charges that took nearly two weeks for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to bring after police initially declined any. His defense attorneys have suggested Penny was simply performing a civic duty by acting out of self-defense to protect subway passengers from the perceived threat of Neely, who witnesses claim was acting erratically but not violently.

Conversely, Jordan’s family had been pushing for murder charges to no avail.

The incident was recorded by bystanders in video footage that went viral, making it nearly impossible to select jurors who either are unfamiliar with chokehold death or haven’t already formed an opinion about it.

Earlier this month, prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred during a pre-trial hearing about whether to admit evidence from Penny’s interview with forgiving NYPD detectives.

Activists have planned to stage protests outside of Criminal Court in Manhattan each day the trial lasts.

What happened between Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny?

Eyewitnesses aboard the F-line train that fateful day on May 1, 2023, claim Neely was yelling that he was hungry and didn’t care if he went to jail. After Neely reportedly took off his jacket and threw it to the ground of the subway car, video footage shows Penny employing a sprawling chokehold on Neely while two other men help hold him down. Penny, who was trained to kill by the military, is accused of coming up behind Neely and placing him in a chokehold that lasted for as long as 15 minutes, police told reporters.

Penny and his helpers were able to keep Neely restrained via the chokehold until there was no more life in his body.

First responders couldn’t revive Neely and he was pronounced dead at a local hospital a short time later.

Penny was arrested on the scene but later released without any criminal charges, sparking an uproar over the lack of accountability for employing deadly force over a perceived physical threat from Neely.

Nearly two full weeks later, Penny and his lawyers were allowed by law enforcement to orchestrate his surrender.

A grand jury formally indicted Neely more than a month after he killed Neely.

 

Penny has been doing damage control

Penny has maintained that he never intended to kill Neely and doubled down on his claims that race was not a factor when he decided to take the law into his own hands.

In an interview with Law & Crime, Penny predictably explained that Neely’s alleged verbal threats justified the physical force that ultimately killed him. Penny also downplayed the severity of the chokehold — which caused Neely to die by “compression of the neck,” according to a medical examiner — claiming it wasn’t applied for the amount of time “some people” are saying it was

Donations poured in for Daniel Penny

Online contributions to Penny’s legal defense fund soared in the immediate aftermath of him choking Neely to death as donors seemingly rushed to thank him for taking the law into his own hands and committing homicide.

In the days after Penny surrendered, the online fundraiser exceeded $2 million from more than 41,000 donors. Most of the donations were attached to “thank you” notes in grateful appreciation from people who described Penny as a “hero” and “good Samaritan” despite the violent nature of his alleged crime committed against someone who, again, witnesses report was not being violent.

As of Monday morning, Penny’s legal define fund has generated more than $3.1 million in donations, $10,000 of which purportedly coming from Vivek Ramaswamy, a failed Republican candidate for president who has aligned himself with Donald Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Trump supporter, has tweeted the link to the online crowdfunding site and politicized the prosecution with calls to “stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens … like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.”

Similar fundraising efforts for Neely have attracted a small fraction of Penny’s legal defense fund.

Daniel Penny has insisted he’s not racist

During an interview with the New York Post, Penny told the publication that he wasn’t a racist and that race had nothing to do with the incident that ended in Neely’s death.

“I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit comical,” said Penny. “Everybody who’s ever met me can tell you, I love all people, I love all cultures. You can tell by my past and all my travels and adventures around the world. I was actually planning a road trip through Africa before this happened.”

Also during Penny’s interview with the New York Post, when given the chance to apologize to Neely’s family, Penny only responded that he was “deeply saddened by the loss of life” and that “It’s tragic what happened to him.”

Donte Mills, an attorney for the Neely family, also responded to Penny’s interview, calling it “an advertisement to soften the public’s view of Daniel Penny who choked Jordan Neely to death.”

“We never called him a white supremacist, we called him a killer,” said Mills. “We don’t care how many vacations he’s been on. We want to know why he didn’t let go of that chokehold until Jordan was dead.”

Penny has doubled down on downplaying the factor of Neely’s race.

“I didn’t see a Black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers–a lot of whom were people of color. A man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color,” Penny said.

Jordan Neely’s tumultuous past revealed

Neely’s death came more than a decade after his mother suffered a similar homicidal fate at the hands of his stepfather in 2007.

Slightly more than 16 years earlier, 14-year-old Neely was an eyewitness to the domestic violence that ultimately contributed to the murder of his own mother.

Christine Neely was 36 years old when her boyfriend choked her to death, stuffed her body in a suitcase and dumped it on the side of a highway in the Bronx.

More than four years later, an 18-year-old Jordan Neely testified during Shawn Southerland’s murder trial how he saw the couple “fight every day,” NJ.com reported at the time.

That marked a turning point for Jordan Neely, his aunt told the New York Post.

Carolyn Neely said her nephew was “a complete mess” after his mother’s murder, adding that “he has never been the same” since.

Carolyn Neely continued: “It had a big impact on him. He developed depression and it grew and became more serious. He was schizophrenic, PTSD. Doctors knew his condition and he needed to be treated for that.”

She added: “The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended Daniel Penny

New York City’s mayor spoke of Daniel Penny in sympathetic and benevolent terms in his initial reaction to Jordan Neely’s death.

Mayor Eric Adams — who has since been indicted by federal prosecutors on sweeping corruption allegations — refused to say whether a former Marine trained to kill who took it upon himself to place an unarmed Black man in a protracted chokehold committed a murder despite medical examiners ruling the death a homicide. Adams also suggested that those referring to Neely’s death as murder were irresponsible and jumping to conclusions even though that conclusion had already been definitively reached by medical officials.

Adams specifically referred to New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who called the incident “a public murder” — and state City Comptroller Brad Lander — who tweeted the definition of “vigilantism” in response to the killing.

“Both the congresswoman and the comptroller, the comptroller’s a citywide leader and I don’t think that’s very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation,” Adams told Abby Phillip on CNN Primetime.

Neely’s family responded by calling out Adams and imploring him to “please give us a call,” emphasizing that the “family wants you to know that Jordan matters.”

“You seem to think others are more important than him,” Neely’s family said in a statement before accurately concluding with: “You cannot ‘assist’ someone with a chokehold.”

Neely’s family has also had some choice words for Penny and his legal team, which previously released a statement claiming the chokehold was “never intended to harm Mr. Neely.”

The statement also criminalized Neely in death and said he was “aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers,” directly contradicting claims from eyewitnesses.

In response, Neely’s family pointed out that Penny’s statement “was not an apology nor an expression of regret.”

Calling the statement “character assassination” of Neely, Penny was accused of feeling “entitled to take Jordan’s life.”

Neely’s family said Penny “never intended to help [Jordan] at all. In short, his actions on the train, and now his words, show why he needs to be in prison.”

SEE ALSO:

Jordan Neely’s Killer Had Help: Will The People Who Aided And Abetted Daniel Penny Be Charged Too?

‘No Sympathy’: Candace Owens’ Heartless Comments About Jordan Neely’s Death Are A New Low