Lawyers representing Buffalo Tops Supermarket gunman Peyton Gendron want federal charges dropped due to POC underrepresentation on the grand jury.
According to Associated Press, on Thursday (August 14) a judge is scheduled for a hearing regarding the "flawed" grand jury, which largely consists of white jurors. Gendron is alleged to have slain ten victims and wounded three individuals at Tops Supermarket in 2022, targeting the Buffalo location in a predominately Black neighborhood.
In a court filing, Gendron's attorneys contended that Black and Hispanic people and men were "systemically and significantly underrepresented" in the grand jury.
"To illustrate this point, the grand jury that indicted Payton Gendron was drawn from a pool from which approximately one third of the Black persons expected and one third of the Hispanic/Latino persons expected," the lawyers wrote.
The lawyers also allege that data sources used to compile a list for the grand jury had a lack of preservation. The team now seeks for the charges to be dropped due to Gendron's legal rights to a grand jury being chosen from a representative portion of the population being breached.
The U.S. Attorney's office countered in writing that Gendron failed to demonstrate that the district's jury planning was the cause for racial underrepresentation.
"The defendant is charged with killing 10 Black people and injuring three other individuals as part of a racially motivated attack on a grocery store," prosecutors wrote. "He now demands that the court dismiss the indictment against him because, in his view, the implementation of the Western District of New York jury plan led to the underrepresentation of certain minority groups — including Black persons."
While Gendron's lawyers are pushing for him to be excused from the death penalty, as he was 18 years old at the time of the mass murder, he is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Genderon, whose federal trial begins in September, pleaded guilty to federal charges, including murder, in November 2022.
