Daniel Penny hired a legal consultant who helped pick Kyle Rittenhouse's jury, and Jordan Neely's family is apoplectic over it.
Acclaimed trial consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius played a pivotal role in Rittenhouse's self-defense case. In 2020, a 17-year-old Rittenhouse was among the armed civilians protecting local businesses from far-left activists during the Jacob Blake riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when a Black Lives Matter mob mercilessly hunted him down.
Dimitrius worked "hand in hand" with Rittenhouse's defense counsel in the lead-up to trial by conducting several mock juries and workshopping various legal strategies, one in which Rittenhouse testified in his own defense. Ritttenhouse ended up taking the stand, and the case resulted in acquittal on all counts.
Now, Dimitrius, an industry heavyweight, is helping out Penny, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran facing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges for defending his fellow passengers aboard a busy New York City subway car in May 2023. Penny had heroically stepped in to subdue Neely, who was threatening to kill other commuters, including women and children, trapped on the train with him. Neely later died, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
Throughout the two-week jury selection process in Penny's trial, Dimitrius appeared in Manhattan criminal court every day, meticulously evaluating the line-up as the defense vetted scores of prospective jurors. Taking attentive notes, Dimitrius was observed thoroughly documenting each juror's background, body language, and comments during questioning.
"This case is being tried in the press, and a lot of people in the community have formed opinions," Dimitrius said, according to her alma mater, Scripps College, where she studied sociology, psychology, and criminology. "My job is to help ascertain what kind of biases are there."
The co-author of "Reading People," Dimistrius has honed her ability to understand and predict the behaviors of jurors as well as witnesses, earning her the nickname, "The Seer," bestowed upon her by The American Lawyer Magazine.
She brings with her decades of expertise to the high-stakes Penny trial. Over the course of her career, she provided consultation services in more than 1,000 trials and helped select over 600 juries.
"Ms. Dimitirus's reputation in the field is second to none," Penny's defense lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, told The New York Times. "So in a situation like this, we want to put the best team together to give our client the best defense."
Neely's relatives joined BLM protestors outside the courthouse to rally in opposition to Dimitrius' involvement, saying her hiring is "a disgraceful attempt to justify vigilantism and devalue Neely's life," according to ABC 7 New York.
"I'm not going to sit here and I'm going to play deaf, dumb, and blind and act like I don't know the reason why they hired this person to come and represent Daniel Penny," Neely's uncle, Christian Neely, said of Dimitrius. " All I can say is that I believe in the prosecution. I believe in New York City. I'm going to keep this thing here short and sweet. I want justice for Jordan Neely. The whole family do. The whole family do."
Jurors were finally seated last week in Penny's case, and it appears the defense secured a favorable 12-person jury, one that neither Neely's family nor the BLM lobby is happy with.
"This is what happens when a black person is lynched," remarked BLM Greater New York co-founder Hawk Newsome, who's been launching racially charged tirades outside the courthouse since Penny's trial started. "The defense comes together to make it seem it's the black person's fault." He added that "everything that we said about race was confirmed today."
Meanwhile, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's underlings accused the defense of a racially motivated picking process.
"The defense has been striking people based on their race," assistant district attorney Dafna Yoran, who's prosecuting Penny on behalf of Bragg, claimed, pointing to the defense using eight out of their nine no-questions-asked strikes to dismiss "people of color." She insisted, "If you look at the entirety of their behavior, race is playing a huge part of it."
During voir dire, jurors were asked about their experiences, specifically on the subway. The defense's best bet was assembling a jury of subway riders for an accurate reflection of Penny's peers, as opposed to people who rarely ride the rails.
Thanks to Dimitrius, the majority of jurors now sworn in had some form of negative interactions while using public transit. Most had witnessed first-hand someone acting erratically while they were riding the New York City subway. Three of them are commuters who have been harassed before on the transit system, and nine are New Yorkers who'd seen outbursts on the subway. One woman who was chosen recalled a man once yelling and swearing at her on the train. "I think there are particular instances where force can be used," she said of such disturbances.
In the courtroom, Dimitrius notably also aided O.J. Simpson, among other high-profile clients. At the time of Simpson's sensational 1994 trial, Dimitrius told The Associated Press that it would be impossible to seat jurors who had no pre-conceived opinions. So, she was tasked with ensuring that those biases were more favorable to Simpson's side.
From there, Dimitrius developed a jury profile and determined that the "perfect juror" for the defense was as a "female African American with a high school education or less." She then guided Simpson's defense team to select specific candidates out of the jury pool, including six black women in the majority-black jury that ultimately found Simpson not guilty.
Dimitrius further explained on CourtTV the art of picking the "perfect" jury and eliminating "stealth" jurors, who'd want to decide the outcome of the case before hearing any evidence, by identifying inconsistencies and lies uttered during voir dire.
The highly sought-after celebrity consultant has served clients across the spectrum. In the 1990s, Dimitrius worked with defense attorneys in a handful of cases that stemmed from the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, an incident that incited race riots. More recently, she consulted for George Floyd's legal team in a civil suit against the city of Minneapolis.