(OSV News) — Federal prosecutors said Jan. 12 they will seek the death penalty against the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in 2022.
The convicted gunman, Payton Gendron, 20, was previously sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he pleaded guilty to New York state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism. The Empire State does not use capital punishment, but the federal prosecutors sought it in a separate case.
By his own admission, Gendron indicated racism motivated his premeditated attack and he had hoped to inspire others to similar acts of terror. Prosecutors argued Gendron was motivated by the so-called Great Replacement theory, a conspiracy theory by white supremacists in which they claim people of other races plot to eliminate the white race.
The decision to pursue the death penalty for Gendron comes in contrast to a 2020 campaign promise from President Joe Biden, a Catholic and a Democrat, to repeal the federal death penalty.
Death sentences don’t deter violence
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that opposes capital punishment, told OSV News that “we are saddened and disappointed that the Biden administration is seeking a death sentence in Mr. Gendron’s case, especially given its campaign promise to end the federal death penalty.”
In his 2022 attack, Gendron reportedly drove more than 200 miles from his home in a rural part of the state to Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo’s predominantly Black East Side neighborhood, where he shot and killed eight customers, as well as the store security guard and a deacon from a local church who drove people in need of transportation to shop for groceries. Three other people were wounded in the attack but survived.
Gendron considered targeting supermarkets in Rochester and Syracuse, New York, before settling on the Buffalo Tops location to carry out his plans to mass murder Black Americans.
Vaillancourt Murphy said that “mass shootings and racial violence are deeply troubling aspects of U.S. society, and the same can be said of the death penalty.”
“We know that death sentences don’t deter or prevent mass violence; in fact, many believe they create a notoriety that others want to emulate,” she said. “Similarly, we know the death penalty does nothing to curb racial violence; on the contrary, data show that capital punishment is disproportionately applied to people of color, perpetuating racial injustice.
“Essentially, the death penalty doesn’t fix the problems it’s supposed to. It just keeps the cycles of violence and racial injustice going. If we want to tackle these deep social ills in our country, we need to get to the root causes of racially motivated violence and work to address, prevent, and heal them.”
Legal battle could traumatize victims’ families
Vaillancourt Murphy noted that federal prosecutors seeking the death penalty for Gendron could result in “a long legal battle with the potential to be deeply traumatizing for the victims’ families for years to come.”
“Their suffering has been unimaginable,” she said. “Our thoughts are with these 10 families today, several of whom have expressed opposition to seeking a death sentence. We pray for all of them during their journeys of healing.”
The Associated Press reported that the families of Gendron’s victims have had mixed reactions to the federal death penalty decision. In a joint statement provided to the AP, attorneys for some of victims’ relatives said the decision “provides a pathway to both relief and a measure of closure for the victims and their families.” Another said it would have been more satisfying to have Gendron live out the rest of his days in prison “being surrounded by the population of people he tried to kill.”
In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis cited St. John Paul II, whom he said “stated clearly and firmly (in the encyclical ‘Evangelium Vitae‘) that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”
“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”
Pope Francis also revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reflect that position in 2018.
