Written by Carolin Thompson
The federal charges against the gunman who killed ten Black people at a Buffalo grocery should be withdrawn, according to his attorneys, since the grand jury that indicted him lacked sufficient representation from Black and other minority organizations.
Payton Gendron’s contention that the grand jury selection procedure was defective is set to be heard by a judge on Thursday.
If found guilty in the 2022 mass shooting at a Tops grocery, which he targeted due to its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Gendron, a white man, could be executed.The ages of those killed ranged from 32 to 86. There were three more injured.
He entered a guilty plea to several state crimes, including murder, in November 2022 and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of release.
Next year, a trial on the pending federal firearms and hate crime counts is anticipated to start.
In a court filing, Gendron’s attorneys contend that Black and Hispanic men and women are systematically and noticeably underrepresented in the lists used to choose jurors in the Buffalo region.
In order to demonstrate this point, Gendron’s attorneys claimed that the grand jury that indicted him was selected from a pool that included roughly one-third Black people and one-third Hispanic/Latino people. They claimed that the lack of preservation of the data sources a vendor utilized to compile the listings made the issue worse.
They claimed that the charges should be dropped because Gendron’s legal rights to a grand jury selected from a representative sample of the community were infringed.
The arguments, according to the prosecution, are flawed both legally and factually.
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The U.S. Attorney’s office responded in writing that Gendron failed to demonstrate that the district’s jury strategy was the reason for the chronic underrepresentation. They noted that the selection method, which uses information from the voter, driver, tax, disability, and unemployment lists, was not the reason for any racial discrepancies and that any differences were within acceptable guidelines.
Prosecutors said that the defendant is accused of carrying out a racially motivated attack on a grocery shop, murdering ten Black people and injuring three others. Since he believes that the Western District of New York jury design resulted in the underrepresentation of some minority groups, especially Black people, he now requests that the court dismiss the accusation against him.
Oral arguments on the defense’s motion are set for Thursday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo.
In a previous filing, Gendron’s lawyers contended that since he was 18 years old at the time of the shooting—an age at which the brain is still developing—Gendron should not be executed. The motion is still pending.
