Ahead of his federal death penalty trial, the attorneys for Payton Gendron who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket want to move his trial to New York City, because it would be difficult to seat a diverse and impartial jury in the upstate city (article available here).
Gendron is already serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for this same incident after pleading guilty in November 2022 to multiple state hate crime charges, including murder.
In a 43-page motion filed Monday in the Western District of New York, Gendron's attorneys write "...due to the overwhelming amount of pretrial publicity, combined with the impact of this case on Buffalo's segregated communities of color, it is impossible for Payton Gendron to select a fair and impartial jury in the Western District of New York."
Gendron’s attorneys, in an earlier filing, argued that Gendron should be exempt from the death penalty because he was 18 years old at the time of the shooting, an age when the brain is still developing. That motion is pending.
The federal death penalty trial is expected to begin in September.