A jury has been selected in the fatal subway choking case against former West Islip resident Daniel Penny

A jury has been selected in the manslaughter case against a former Long Island Marine accused of killing a homeless man on the subway as prosecutors raised bias questions about how the defense attorneys picked the panelists.

Lawyers for the defense and prosecution spent a week and half haggling over who should sit in judgment of Daniel Penny, 26, a white man, over the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, 30, a Black homeless subway busker, on May 1, 2023, at the Broadway-Lafayette stop on the F train.

Manhattan prosecutor Dafna Yoran on Wednesday accused the defense attorneys for Penny, originally of West Islip, of culling people of color from the panel.

"The defense is striking people for their race," Yoran told the judge. "Eight out of their nine challenges have been for people of color, of those five are Black, two are Hispanic, one is Asian."

The defense called the claim "outrageous."

The charge came after defense attorney Thomas Kenniff sought to strike a Black woman and a Hispanic woman from the panel.

"Based on the law, not feelings, I think the DA has made a case," State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley said, adding: "By raising the challenge it sounds like you are calling your opponent racist ... but we know it’s just a point of law and not to take it personally."

Kenniff and his co-counsel, Steven Raiser, hired high-profile juror consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, who advised on the O.J. Simpson and the Kyle Rittenhouse trials, to assist them with selecting the panel.

On Wednesday, she joined the lawyers at the defense attorneys as the judge asked them to justify each of their challenges to the eight jurors that they had excluded from the panel.

Kenniff said that one Black woman had purple hair and previously had issues with homelessness.

"She can have whatever hair she wants to, but it’s outside the mainstream appearance," he said. Another juror, a Hispanic man, who identified himself as a "weed connoisseur" and was on the "low end of the education scale," according to Kenniff, would not be suitable for the jury.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found synthetic marijuana in Neely’s system after his death.

Penny’s lawyers struck a Hispanic juror who was a member of the Green Party, which Kenniff said was "obviously a very left-of-center party."

Another Black woman who had her domestic violence case prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney was also dismissed.

In some instances, jurors of color who read The New York Times were disqualified by the defense team because "someone who follows those news sources will be less favorable to us," Kenniff said.

The prosecutors said white jurors with similar news diets were not challenged.

"The fact that they are scrambling as hard as they are to come up with the reasons tells the story," Yoran said. "I can go through all the white jurors that they did not strike that are New York Times readers. They are really digging to find reasons why it is they are striking people of color."

In another sharp exchange during which defense lawyers were reviewing their notes on their juror challenges, the prosecutor said they were "mixing up the two Black jurors."

"We’re not mixing them up, judge," Kenniff said. "That’s a passive-aggressive comment to suggest that we’re labeling."

The jury consists of seven women and five men and four alternate jurors, who will sit through the trial but deliberate only if the other jurors are unable. One Black man will serve on the panel, and one Black woman will stand by as an alternate.

According to Penny's lawyers, there are seven white people, one Filipino man, one Middle Eastern man and one Hispanic on the jury. One woman juror is from Long Island originally but now lives in the city.

Opening arguments are expected to begin Friday at 10 a.m.