NEW YORK — Jury selection began Monday in Manhattan in the case against Daniel Penny, the former Marine accused of recklessly choking a homeless man to death on a crowded subway train.

Penny, 24, arrived on the first day of his trial as dozens of placard-bearing protesters gathered outside the lower Manhattan courthouse, some of them chanting, “Murderer! Murderer!” He’s pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the May 1, 2023, incident that played out between two stops on an uptown F train, denying he unreasonably restrained the 30-year-old Jordan Neely.

Penny’s legal team has claimed he sprang into action under the belief an erratic Neely threatened the lives of passengers aboard the subway. Neely, a one-time Michael Jackson tribute artist, was homeless at the time and battling untreated schizophrenia. He was unarmed.

By the end of Monday’s proceedings, attended by Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told 45 of 136 New Yorkers called in for jury duty to return to court for questioning on Friday at 10 a.m. They’re expected to face a grilling from prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Penny’s lawyers about their experiences riding the subway.

People who said they could not participate in the trial, expected to last for around six weeks, cited scheduling conflicts.

Nearly every person in the first batch of 86 prospective jurors who filed into Wiley’s courtroom shot their hands up when asked if they’d heard about the polarizing case that provoked local and national debate about mental illness, subway safety, the criminal justice system and vigilantism.

“Almost everybody. Not a surprise,” Wiley said.

Wiley advised the prospective panelists that if they had formed an opinion, “You have to be prepared to change it.”

The judge read a list of more than 60 people who may testify during the trial or whose names may otherwise come up. Included were passengers aboard the subway, NYPD personnel from the 5th Precinct, and various medical professionals.

Currently out on a $100,000 bond, Penny, of Suffolk County, L.I., faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the top count. He wore a navy blue suit and a maroon tie on the first day of his trial, waving to prospective panelists and greeting them with a “good morning” and “good afternoon.”

The former infantry squad leader, who served for four years in the Marines, claims he boarded the train at Jay St.-MetroTech in Brooklyn and intervened when Neely got on at Second Ave. in Manhattan, threw down his jacket and started screaming.

Prosecutors do not allege Penny intended to kill Neely. But they say he behaved recklessly by placing him in a lethal chokehold for at least six minutes and disregarded signs he was putting Neely’s life at risk — including “well past the point” Neely went limp and after passengers had disembarked the train car at the Broadway-Lafayette St. station.

“This case comes down to, someone got on the train screaming, and someone else choked them to death,” an attorney for Neely’s loved ones, Donte Mills, said outside court. “Those things will never balance out. There’s nothing, no excuse that can be given, to balance that out.”

The 12 Manhattanites ultimately selected to decide the lightning rod case are expected to hear testimony from bystander passengers and detectives who interviewed Penny in the immediate aftermath, when he described Neely as a “crackhead.” It’s unclear whether Penny will choose to testify.

When they testified before a grand jury last year, multiple passengers said Neely boarded the train car and expressed that he was “homeless, hungry, and thirsty,” and willing “to go to jail or prison,” according to court records.

Accounts differed on the threat Neely posed.

In arguing that Penny acted solely to protect others until cops arrived, the defense, in court documents, has focused on accounts by passengers who deemed his behavior as highly threatening, including one woman who testified that no one had ever “put fear into” her like Neely.

The prosecution has highlighted the perspective of passengers who believed Neely’s outburst was “common” of people they’d witnessed in crisis while riding the trains and that no one accused him of putting his hands on anyone.

The trial continues Tuesday.

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