In our weekly segment, "A Closer Look," we feature a story from a BTPM NPR reporter. This week, Associate Producer Michael Loss sits down with Assistant Managing Editor Ryan Zunner to discuss the latest motion by the defense team for Payton Gendron, the Tops mass shooter.
Michael Loss: Hey, Ryan, thanks for joining me on “A Closer Look” today.
Ryan Zunner: Thank you, Michael.
Loss: One of the biggest and most impactful stories in Buffalo over the past few years has been the legal cycle regarding Payton Gendron, the Tops mass shooter. He was sentenced on state charges in 2023, so since then, the focus has been on hate crime charges at the federal level. We've heard there's an update on that. So, what do you know?
Zunner: After some pretty long delays in getting this federal process carried out, originally it was the prosecution, the Department of Justice, taking a while to decide if they were going to proceed with the death penalty; they finally decided to move forward with that. So now you see the defense attorneys with their sort of flurry of motions; they filed several of them. The most, I guess, high profile motion, and frankly, offensive to a lot of people around Buffalo and around the country is the lawyers saying and arguing in this motion that the grand jury that indicted Gendron on those federal charges was systemically and significantly under representing of the community around Western New York, specifically mentioning the lack of Black and Hispanic people on the jury, saying that essentially, Gendron’s constitutional rights were violated because of that.
Loss: Wow. So, the federal judge presiding over the case, Judge Lawrence Vilardo, has come out and said that that kind of motion is a little incongruous. So, what are local attorneys saying about this motion?
Zunner: Yeah, so I spoke to two attorneys who are very close to the tragedy of May 14 and legal proceedings from it, Attorney John Elmore, who represents a lot of the 5/14 victim families in civil cases. I also spoke to former Erie County District Attorney John Flynn about this motion and about these sorts of federal proceedings. They both see it as very ironic that this would be the argument. However, they both agree that this tends to be what happens in these death penalty trials, where these lawyers are trying to just throw out every kind of motion that they can. Again, they both see sort of the irony in this, but they also understand that the judge does have a degree of totality when they look at situations like this; there's a high burden that the defense has to meet, and they both think that this particular motion goes nowhere.
Loss: So why is there a problem with jury diversity in Buffalo?
Zunner: Again, both those attorneys, Elmore and Flynn, are on the same page. They have both seen throughout their career’s issues of jury diversity, but again, it must be sort of a systemic issue in the Gendron case, which they don't see there, knowing Gendron's background as a known white supremacist, but they both see it as an actual issue in Western New York. I asked Flynn this, and here he is.
John Flynn [Soundbite]: Oh, absolutely, there is, as a matter of fact, when I was District Attorney, I was part of a group that was studying jury diversification, and that task force is still going on right now. I stayed on as a task force member, and you know we have a number of judges who are on the task force and a number of common attorneys in town.
Loss: So that's former Erie County DA John Flynn, but you’ve spoken to John Elmore? What does he have to say?
Zunner: So, John Elmore, a very prominent attorney in the Black community locally, has tried tons of cases around the area, and again, while he agrees in the irony and the fact that neither of them believes this motion is going to go anywhere, he also sees problems with the jury pools around Western New York. Here's John Elmore.
John Elmore [Soundbite]: Sometimes when they do show up, they're too busy, or, you know, to take the time off of work, and they're not going to get reimbursed. And other times, people in a poor population move. Then, when they get the notices for jury duty, the notice gets returned, address unknown. Then sometimes they get the list from the voting registration list, from the driver's license list.
Loss: So, both Flynn and Elmore acknowledge that these sorts of motions happen in a death penalty trial. With that being said, can we kind of predict what will happen next?
Zunner: Yep, Judge Vilardo will have to rule on this motion by the defense and several other motions. He did set up some pretty hard deadlines going forward as far as when the actual trial starts. These are already kind of picked when jury selection and questioning happen. So, all expectations are that this trial will begin next summer.
Loss: Well, Ryan, this is certainly an impactful story. So, thank you for coming in and taking “A Closer Look.”
Zunner: Thanks, Michael.
Loss: If you want to hear any more coverage on the latest in the Payton Gendron federal proceedings, go to our website. My name is Michael loss, and this has been “A Closer Look” on BTPM NPR.
