The verdict was “not guilty,” and so common sense prevailed. But the thing that put the next four to 15 years of Daniel Penny’s life in peril was the same thing that ultimately saved him: the numbers.

Yes, the numbers. While the borough of Manhattan, from which Penny’s jury was pulled, votes nearly 90% Democrat, it’s safe to say that an even greater percentage of them have ridden the New York City subway.

They knew. They knew.

“Someone is going to die today,” said a deranged and menacing Jordan Neely on May 1, 2023, fresh from a stint at Rikers Island after having punched a 67-year-old woman in the face, thereby breaking her nose and shattering her orbital bone. And he was right. Somebody did die that day.

But rather than wait to see what Neely’s next move would be, Marine veteran Daniel Penny, the then-24-year-old hero of the F train, sprung into action to defend himself and his fellow passengers — and, he believed, to defend Neely himself from doing something he would ultimately regret.

Penny said he then exchanged looks with the person next to him and asked that person to hold his phone. He then took his earbuds out and grabbed Neely from behind in a headlock, applying what the mainstream press has universally characterized as a chokehold. But that’s not correct. The term “chokehold” is not only inaccurate, it’s also prejudicial. That’s because the intentional crushing of one’s windpipe carries with it a suggestion of aggression and violence that doesn’t fit the defensive application of pressure to the side of the neck for the purpose of neutralizing a threat. The latter is called a carotid restraint, and that’s what Daniel Penny used to subdue Jordan Neely.

Penny’s 30-minute NYPD interrogation video was released before the jury convened, and it was telling. He was calm and forthcoming with the officers, and he had no idea he would ultimately be charged with reckless homicide. Penny had simply been on his way to the gym after his architecture class in Brooklyn when his life changed forever. At the time of that interrogation, he didn’t even know Neely had died.

The defense pathologist, Dr. Satish Chundru, blamed “the combined effect of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana.” In this respect, there was general agreement between the defense and the prosecution. On Monday, the state rested its case with medical examiner Dr. Cynthia Harris claiming Neely was killed solely by Penny’s “chokehold,” even though Neely had enough drugs in him “to put down an elephant.”

At the time, we wondered whether anyone else was puzzled by the certitude of that assessment by the state’s medical examiner, and perhaps members of the jury were as well.

“I hope he has a great lawyer, and I’m praying for him,” said a 66-year-old woman and fellow passenger on that subway car. “And I pray that he gets treated fairly, I really do. Because after all of this ensued, I went back and made sure that I said ‘Thank you’ to him.”

“I believe in my heart,” said another grateful fellow passenger, “that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt. We were scared for our lives.”

Yesterday morning, Daniel Penny was still on trial — and liberty was still on the line — until shortly before noon, when the jury declared him not guilty on the remaining charge of criminally negligent homicide after having deadlocked last week on the most serious charge of second-degree manslaughter, which could’ve put him behind bars for 15 years.

Penny’s attorneys had wanted the judge to declare a mistrial, but the judge instead urged the jury to consider that lesser charge, which would’ve carried a sentence of up to four years. This lesser charge was a diabolical attempt to coerce a weary jury into considering a “compromise” charge after having rejected the gross overcharge of second-degree manslaughter — and we have woke Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to thank for it.

As the New York Post editorial board wrote, “Frankly, it’s obscene that … Bragg even asked for this favor, since it destroys the last shreds of his claims to care about making the justice system more fair.”

The jury, though, wasn’t buying it. One or more of those jurors seemed to be wondering about the reckless homicide charge last week, and that certainly must’ve been unsettling to Daniel Penny and those who care about him. But there was no such hesitation yesterday regarding the lesser charge of negligent homicide.

But lest you think Bragg is the worst of it, get a load of what the founder of New York’s Black Lives Matter chapter, Hawk Newsome, had to say about the dismissal of the most serious charge: “Today, white supremacy got another victory. Today, the KKK, the klansmen, the evil in America got another victory.”

Newsome and his fellow racial rabble-rousers were no less incensed after Penny’s ultimate acquittal. “We need some Black vigilantes,” Newsome said following yesterday’s verdict. “People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud? How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us?”

Sounds to us like a call to kill whiteys. We wonder: Where’s Alvin Bragg now?

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Penny’s acquittal, though, is the lack of outrage on the Left. Newsome is a cartoon character, and so were the racial arsonists who stood up there with him yesterday. They’re an extreme minority, and the overwhelming majority of folks — left, right, and center — know that the jury got it right this time.

Think about it: There were black, brown, and white people on that jury, just as there were black, brown, and white people on that subway car. They knew. They knew.

Justice has been done, but it’s an American disgrace that this young man was put through the wringer. “The acquittal of Penny is a small victory,” columnist Brianna Lyman writes. “But the true cost is the long-term impact this case will have on others. The next time a Good Samaritan sees danger, he’ll think twice about what happened to Penny before stepping in. Trying Penny, a Marine veteran, was never about justice — it was about making an example of him.”

Alvin Bragg tried and failed. But where Bragg failed, justice won out. Today, and every day going forward, all of us are Daniel Penny.