BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Federal prosecutors announced Friday their decision to seek the death penalty against Payton Gendron, a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022. Gendron, 20, is currently serving a life sentence in prison with no chance of parole after pleading guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism.
Although New York does not have capital punishment, the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case. Gendron had promised to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
The decision to seek the death penalty marks the first time President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has authorized a new pursuit of the death penalty. Gendron drove more than 200 miles from his home in rural Conklin, N.Y., to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, where he shot eight supermarket customers, a store security guard, and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries. Three people were wounded but survived.
In court papers announcing the decision to seek the death penalty, U.S. attorney for western New York, Trini Ross, cited the substantial planning that went into the shooting, including the choice of location, which she said was meant to “maximize the number of Black victims.”
Relatives of the victims, whose ages ranged from 32 to 86, have expressed mixed views on the decision to seek the death penalty. Attorneys for some of the victims’ families said the decision “provides a pathway to both relief and a measure of closure for the victims and their families.”
An attorney for Gendron, Sonya Zoghlin, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision to seek the death penalty, noting that her client was 18 at the time of the shooting.
Federal death penalty cases have become a rarity since the election of Biden, a Democrat who opposes capital punishment. Under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department has permitted the continuation of two capital prosecutions and withdrawn from pursuing death in more than two dozen cases. Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 pending a review of procedures. Although the moratorium does not prevent prosecutors from seeking death sentences, the Justice Department has done so sparingly.
Gendron carried out his attack on May 14, 2022, using a semi-automatic marked with racial slurs and phrases including “The Great Replacement,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that there’s a plot to diminish the influence of White people. Prosecutors met Friday with several family members of victims before the decision to seek the death penalty was made public.
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