BUFFALO, N.Y. — Public support for the death penalty has been waning for decades, but events like the Tops mass shooting may be shifting the conversation.
"Mass shootings, oftentimes either race-based or religious-based, are publicized and are driving support for the death penalty back up," Attorney William Easton, who is the former Deputy Director of the New York State Capital Defense Office, said.
So, will the Justice Department seek the death penalty for the man who shot and killed 10 people at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue last year?
"They have been very careful in almost never seeking the death penalty in new cases," Richard Dieter Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said.
This week, the Justice Department sought the death penalty for the man who killed eight on a bike path in New York City.
When considering seeking the death penalty, the Justice Department does take into consideration the opinions of the victims' families. However, the department considers other factors as well.
"There's no legal requirement that they be the controlling voices, even if they're unanimous," Dieter said.
"The federal prosecutor, or state prosecutor, has an independent duty to weigh the appropriateness of seeking death. It's a much broader perspective than the pain of the victims' families, which of course is present and to be considered, but is not dispositive or determinative," Easton said.
President Biden has put a moratorium on federal executions and has expressed that he doesn't believe in the sentence of death.
"But the Justice Department is a different entity," Dieter said.
The Justice Department can still seek the death penalty, regardless of the moratorium. But the moratorium may not even apply to the Tops mass shooter's potential case, because it can take decades.
"It gets into a very emotional and roller coaster kind of thing, and it drags on. It doesn't end with the sentence," Dieter said.
"Decades and decades just in the recent past just because of issues that come up, the means of execution, the actual component of the legal cocktail, the issues that come up post-conviction," Easton said.
A long death penalty trial comes with a significant cost.
"It's expensive to have a death penalty trial and carry it out. When I use the word expensive, I don't just mean in terms of dollars and cents expensive. It's also expensive in the terms of resources used, the human resources," Easton said.
But the financial cost isn't the only expense.
"It's the emotional... It's the trauma... It's the long uncertainty... That sort of cost," Dieter said.
