Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, they said in a court filing Friday. Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.
The Justice Department, in the filing, said that “the United States believes the circumstances … are such that, in the event of a conviction, a sentence of death is justified.”
New York does not have capital punishment, but the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case. The gunman had promised to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
In Friday’s notice announcing the decision to seek the death penalty, Trini Ross, the U.S. attorney for western New York, wrote that the gunman had selected the supermarket “in order to maximize the number of Black victims.”
The notice cited a range of factors for the decision, including the substantial planning leading to the shooting and the decision to target at least one victim who was “particularly vulnerable due to old age and infirmity.”
Relatives of the victims had expressed mixed views on whether they thought federal prosecutors should pursue the death penalty. After meeting with prosecutors hours before a Friday hearing in the case, one of the relatives, Mark Talley, shared his thoughts.
“I’m not necessarily disappointed in the decision. … It would have satisfied me more knowing he would have spent the rest of his life in prison being surrounded by the population of people he tried to kill,” said Talley, whose 63-year-old mother Geraldine Talley was killed.
“I would prefer he spend the rest of his life in prison suffering every day,” he added.
Several other family members of victims left without speaking.
The Justice Department has made federal death penalty cases a rarity since the election of President Biden, who opposes capital punishment. This is the first time Attorney General Merrick Garland has authorized a new pursuit of the death penalty. Under his leadership, the Justice Department has permitted the continuation of two capital prosecutions and withdrawn from pursuing death in more than two dozen cases.
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