NEW YORK — Opening statements are set for Friday in the manslaughter trial of Daniel Pennya white Marine veteran accused of choking a black subway rider to death.

An anonymous jury in Manhattan decides the manslaughter case surrounding the death of Jordan Neely in 2023, which prosecutors call a reckless homicide, but Penny claims it was self-defense. The case rattled fault lines surrounding race, homelessness, perceptions of public safety and bystander responsibility.

Penny’s critics see him as a vigilante killer of an unarmed man who acted erratically and made horrific statements but had not attacked anyone on the subway car. Supporters credit Penny, 25, with taking action to protect terrified subway passengers – an action he said was meant to defuse, not kill.

Both camps staged demonstrations, and the case was absorbed into the turbulent politics of the United States as Republican officials. spoke for Penny and the democratic ones attended Neely’s funeral.

“This is not an easy case of a bad man doing a bad thing,” prosecutor Dafna Yoran told prospective jurors during the trial. selection process. While Penny’s intention may have been laudable, she said, “what we’re going to ask you to look at is whether it went too far.”

Meanwhile, Penny’s attorney, Steven Raiser, said a conviction “will have a chilling effect on the right and duty of every New Yorker to stand up for one another.”

Jurors, who were they surveyed about their own subway experienceswill hear opening statements and possibly some witness testimony Friday. It is not clear who will be the prosecutors’ first witness.

Neely’s life was torn apart by mental illness and drug use after his mother was murdered and stuffed in a suitcase when he was a teenager, his family said. By his 30s, he sometimes entertained subway riders as a Michael Jackson impersonator, but he also had a criminal record that included assaulting a woman at a subway station.

Penny, who served four years in the Marines, said he was walking from a college class to a gym when he encountered Neely on a subway train on May 1, 2023.

Neely was begging for money, yelling that he was willing to die or go to jail and making sudden movements, according to witnesses. Some were alarmed, others blasé, court records show.

Penny, who said Neely was threatening people, put her arm around the man’s neck and took him to the floor.

With a bystander videotaping part of the encounter, Penny held Neely down for about six minutes, prosecutors wrote in court documents. The holdup continued as the train stopped, many people got off, two others helped restrain Neely, and another warned Penny, “If you don’t let him go now, you’ll kill him” .

Penny finally released Neely about a minute after his body went limp, prosecutors said.

“I kicked him out,” Penny told police. He later added that he simply wanted to “de-escalate” the tense situation and was not trying to hurt Neely, but rather “to prevent him from hurting someone else.”

City coroners determined that Neely died of neck compression. Penny’s lawyers have indicated they plan to challenge that finding.

They tried unsuccessfully to prevent jurors from hearing some evidence, including Neely’s lack of a gun and Penny’s statement to detectives.

Judge Maxwell Wiley denied both requests. He ruled that Penny spoke willingly to investigators without an attorney and that the question of whether Neely was armed — or someone could reasonably have believed he was — was relevant.