Jury selection began Monday for a former Marine accused of placing a fatal chokehold on a homeless man who was acting erratically on a subway train in New York City last year.

Daniel Penny, 25, is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 1, 2023, death of Jordan Neely. If convicted, Mr. Penny could face up to 15 years behind bars.

Jury selection could take up to a week, and the trial is expected to last four to six weeks.

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According to court documents, Mr. Penny placed Neely in a chokehold after the homeless man boarded the F train in Manhattan and began shouting at passengers in an agitated manner.

Prosecutors said the chokehold lasted roughly three minutes and other passengers helped Mr. Penny restrain Neely. 

Neely eventually went limp and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The city’s medical examiner determined the cause of death was compression of the neck. 

Passenger videos of the fatal encounter — which showed Mr. Penny, who is White, grappling with Neely, who is Black, on the floor of the subway car — sparked an uproar over Mr. Penny’s supposed racially fueled vigilantism. 

Mr. Penny turned himself in to authorities more than a week after Neely’s death. He was released on a $100,000 bond and pleaded not guilty to the charges last year.

In interviews with police immediately following the incident, the former Marine said Neely was shouting “I’m gonna kill you” and that he was “ready to die” and go to jail.

Mr. Penny’s lawyers have said they plan to argue that their client wasn’t applying enough pressure to kill Neely and that Neely had high levels of synthetic cannabinoid K2 in his body at the time.  

Juan Alberto Vazquez, who recorded and posted the incident, said at the time that Neely was yelling about his struggles of living on the street before he shouted “I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if I go to jail. I don’t have any food … I’m done.”  

Mr. Vazquez said Neely threw his jacket down at one point and screamed again about how he was ready to go to jail and get a life sentence.

Neely had been arrested more than 40 times in the past decade, including for assaulting a woman in her 60s and kidnapping a 7-year-old girl.

Neely had impersonated Michael Jackson in street performances, though his family said he struggled with drug addiction.

Mr. Penny served four years in the Marines before being discharged in 2021. The Long Island native was looking for work as a bartender when the incident happened.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports