The jury met Wednesday at the home of former Marine Daniel Penny. subway choke test – and most jurors said they had had firsthand experience with someone acting erratically on the rails.

The seven women and five men are now tasked with deciding whether to convict Penny, 25, of killing Jordan Neely, a homeless man who some witnesses said was “incredibly threatening,” on a crowded subway train in May. of 2023.

He faces up to 15 years in prison.

They include three hangers-on who say they were harassed on the transit system, and nine New Yorkers who raised their hands when a judge asked them if they had seen someone have an “outburst” on the subway.

One woman, who lives in Greenwich Village and was elected Wednesday, said a man once yelled and insulted her and her friend in a subway car.

Also selected were an Upper West Side paralegal whose father served in the Israeli military and who rides the subway five days a week, a corporate lawyer from Murray Hill and an Upper West Side retiree who moved to the city from Nebraska .

The 12 panelists, plus four alternates, were chosen after a two-week process that ended with some intense moments in court Wednesday in the already highly charged case, such as when a Manhattan prosecutor accused Penny’s lawyers of trying to oust illegally targeting potential black jurors. of the case.

Deputy District Attorney Dafna Yoran criticized Penny’s attorneys, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, for using eight of their nine no-questions-asked jury challenges against “people of color.”

Kenniff responded that the suggestion that his jury strikes were racially motivated was “outrageous” and noted that one of the jurors selected for the case is a “black male juror.”

Judge Maxwell Wiley ultimately allowed the strikes to stand after asking Kenniff to provide other reasons why the jurors were excluded from the case.

Yoran raised the issue again, also unsuccessfully, after Kenniff and Raiser again attacked a black potential juror Wednesday afternoon.

“If you look at the totality of their behavior, race plays a very important role,” he argued.

At least four people of color serve on the jury.

Raiser and Kenniff have worked throughout the jury selection process with famed jury consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, who has helped high-profile clients like Kyle Rittenhouse pick jurors in recent years, and worked with OJ Simpson on his murder trial.

The district attorney’s office did not have its own jury consultant and instead relied on research from its law clerks before making jury selection decisions, Yoran said.

The issue of race has hung over the case from the beginning.

Penny, who is white, is accused of strangling homeless subway busker Neely, 30, who was black, for six minutes on a crowded F train on May 1, 2023.

Neely, who was unarmed, was verbally threatening passengers inside the northbound train as it approached the Broadway-Lafayette station.

Prosecutors say Penny acted recklessly and ignored an “unjustifiable risk” by continuing to strangle Neely even after the subway doors opened onto the platform, allowing some frightened passengers to flee, and for a minute after he lost consciousness.

Penny’s lawyers have argued that his actions were justified to protect himself and other bandits, and have cited Neely’s chronic abuse of the drug K2, which they say made him prone to violent outbursts.

Penny insisted in an interview with The Post after her arrest that the strangulation murder “It had nothing to do with race.”

“I judge a person by their character,” he said in the May 2023 interview.

“I’m not a white supremacist.”

“Everyone who has met me can tell you that I love all people, I love all cultures,” he added.

“You can tell from my past and all my trips and adventures around the world. “In fact, I was planning a road trip through Africa before this happened.”

Opening statements in the case are scheduled for Friday morning.