Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The 19-year-old white gunman who has been accused of a racially-motivated mass murdering of 10 black people at a local Buffalo supermarket on Jefferson Avenue pled guilty Monday to the highest counts of his indictment with the State of New York.
These charges include a charge that nobody in the State of New York has plead guilty to, domestic terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree, which alone automatically qualifies the teenage shooter the highest sentence possible in New York State, life without parole.
"Thank God, the families and the victims who survived this don't have to endure a long, protracted trial," said Erie County District Attorney John Flynn following the guilty plea. "Today, justice at my level is complete, obviously the federal government still has their charges. Their charges are exactly the same as mine. So the only difference obviously, is that the federal government has the death penalty."
Will the shooter see the death penalty? The Department of Justice will have to continue deliberation of the federal death penalty.
"The focus now, in terms of the the federal case now turns to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Department of Justice," former NY Attorney General Dennis Vacco tells WBEN. "They previously had filed an indictment and in that indictment, they had made allegations of fact that would support seeking the death penalty, but the implementation of the death penalty at the federal level has been under a moratorium imposed by the Attorney General for some time now, as the Department of Justice is reviewing the process and procedure for implementing the death penalty."
Vacco believes the Department of Justice has been moving since the federal indictment was filed in July, "Part of the deliberation in my estimation is not just whether or not the circumstances and facts surrounding the Tops shooting qualify for the death penalty, because I believe, statutorily, they do qualify for the death penalty," Vacco says. "But I think the deliberation at the Department of Justice is whether or not the death penalty should be imposed, or at least sought. The process, that's ongoing. My sense is the guilty pleas in state court will have some influence on that deliberation. but I think that the next determination, in terms of the course of the federal case needs to be made by the Attorney General regarding whether or not the DOJ will seek the death penalty."
According to Vacco, the families of the victims could play a role in influence, "The viewpoint of the victim's families is an important consideration. I'm not sure that there's necessarily a legal requirement that their opinion be sought. They certainly don't have veto power and they certainly can't demand that the death penalty be imposed, but they are the families of the victims. Their thoughts and concerns about how this case should be handled, from the perspective of the death penalty, I think are valid observations that the Department of Justice would be interested in."
The federal death penalty has been reserved typically for very specific instances, could the series of mass shootings plaguing our nation be consideration for removing the memorandum of the death penalty in the nation?
"I think that the facts and circumstances are there," Vacco says. "The death penalty is federally enacted by Congress and it's signed into law by the President, so it is the law of the land. However, the Department of Justice does have discretion as to when to employ it. In my view, if the death penalty is not applicable to the circumstances of these events here in Buffalo in May, then there are no other circumstances that that that federal death penalty would be would be applied to."
