Jury selection starts in federal death penalty trial over Buffalo Tops massacre

Jury selection was set to begin Tuesday in Buffalo in the federal hate crimes trial of Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Tops Friendly Market in 2022. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Gendron is already serving life in prison without parole after pleading guilty in 2023 to state murder and domestic terrorism charges. In federal court he faces 27 counts, including hate crimes, 13WHAM reported. His defense team does not plan to contest his guilt and is focused on keeping him off death row, the Associated Press reported, as published by ABC7.

How jury selection will work

About 1,200 potential jurors filled out questionnaires over the summer, and that pool has been cut to roughly 700, according to 13WHAM. They will be brought in groups of 70 for questioning by both sides. The goal is 12 jurors and six alternates, a process the court clerk said could take six to eight weeks.

The U.S. Justice Department decided in 2024 to seek a death sentence, the AP reported. Gendron's lawyers had said he would plead guilty in exchange for life in prison; prosecutors rejected the offer. The federal public defender's office said in a statement that "nothing will change the fact" that Gendron will die in prison and that it would present mitigating evidence at trial.

The attack on Jefferson Avenue

On May 14, 2022, Gendron, then 18, drove more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin, a mostly white rural town, to the supermarket on Jefferson Avenue and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle, the AP reported. He livestreamed the attack, 13WHAM noted. The 10 people killed were Celestine Chaney, Geraldine Talley, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Andre Mackneil, Heyward Patterson, Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Margus Morrison and Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer working as a store guard. Three other people were wounded.

Families divided on the death penalty

Victims' relatives told the AP they hold different views. Wayne Jones, whose mother Celestine Chaney was killed, said he would rather see Gendron spend decades in prison. Buffalo Common Council member Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire survived a gunshot wound to the neck, said the case is domestic terrorism and that pursuing death matters. Garnell Whitfield, who lost his mother Ruth, said he has no position on capital punishment and hopes the trial sheds light on how Gendron was radicalized.