What does a “jury of his peers” look like for Daniel? Penny is now on trial Will he be tried in Manhattan Criminal Court for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 drowning death of Jordan Neely on the F train?

It is common for trial consultants to differentiate potential jurors by race, age, and gender. However in this situationHere’s the real split in the jury pool: transit: Who takes the subway every day and who doesn’t?

Will a lopsided “work from home” jury help or hurt Penny?

Last Monday Judge Maxwell Wiley was summoned Up to 450 potential jurors He entered the courtroom and gave a standard speech to each group of 90 people about the challenges of serving at a six-week trial.

By mid-morning on Friday he had whittled the group down to 149, and in the afternoon he began questioning them specifically to make sure the panel was fair.

Wiley took a gentle approach when asking the group of 450 people if they could serve.

Specifically, he told the jury pool: “If you work hourly and you know your employer will not pay you for more than three days of absence, let us know immediately.”

That’s because the state pays jurors only $40 a day. So if your employer habit If you’re paid while you’re away — by law your employer is only required to pay for three days of jury duty — you’ll lose money.

And people least The people most likely to be paid for days off are those who earn an hourly wage, not a salary.

Fair enough, but the disproportionate self-selection of hourly workers from the jury pool leads to an unintended consequence, and a unique one for the Penny case: It likely alienates those who ride the subway every day relative to those who don’t.

Consider: Subway passenger pickup last wednesdayThe day jury selection began, it was only 75% of normal pre-COVID.

Compared to 2019, people who now rarely take the subway are more likely to be “home-based” or “hybrid” workers.

On the contrary, those who take the subway every day are grocery store clerks, nurse assistants, and security guards; hourly workers who, the judge acknowledged, would have a harder time serving in a lengthy hearing.

Plus: Lots of white-collar, salaried Manhattanites Always I walked to work every day instead of going underground.

In 2010, 31% of Manhattan residents living below Central Park (the median household income at the time was $104,512) walked to work.

Only 12.7 percent of Manhattanites live in Manhattan above Central Park — median household income is $46,510 — walked to work.

Which group does Penny fall into?

HE he told The Post. In May, shortly after strangling Neely on the F train to (in his words) protect other passengers from the deranged man’s threats of violence, he said he would “ride the subway several times a day.”

If true, he would look like the average hourly worker who is frequently exposed. ever-increasing underground violence and disorder since late 2019.

Through August of this year, violent crime in the subway was 19% higher than in 2019, though it was lower than during and immediately after the pandemic.

Serious crimes are 56% higher and the level of underworld murders has increased fivefold since 2019.

The more often you take the subway and the longer your ride is, the more often you’ll encounter the crazy things that broke out in 2020; Including people who look like they are going to resort to violence at any moment.

I experienced this firsthand last week when I regularly took the subway in Manhattan to attend Penny’s hearing.

On Day 4, I witnessed a disturbing incident: a woman threatening to stab a strange woman on the northbound No. 6 train, just south of Union Square.

“Keep talking, keep talking, say something and get poked,” he shouted during a verbal altercation.

No one was stabbed, but this makes people nervous.

This stress, of course, does not give you an excuse to kill someone.

What will the jury evaluate? legallyIt is whether Neely poses an imminent threat and, if so, whether Penny’s actions to neutralize that threat are justified.

Still we all bring our stuff personal Perspectives on the jury box.

When 149 potential jurors returned for deeper questioning Friday, the judge asked a question that could make up for the initial skew: How often does each of them take the subway?

And it was surprising how many there were don’t do that. Five of the 16 people first questioned said they had never or rarely ridden the rails.

The same flexibility that allows them to avoid taking the subway while working via a laptop may also allow them to serve on a subway murder jury.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.