An avowed white supremacist who gunned down 10 black Americans in an upstate New York town is bargaining with prosecutors in a desperate bid to avoid paying the ultimate price for his crimes.

Lawyers for Payton Gendron, 19, moved to seek a plea agreement at a court hearing on Friday, less than two weeks after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and domestic terrorism.

They indicated their client would admit invading Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in a mostly black suburb of Buffalo and gunning down random shoppers.

An avowed racist, he faces 27 federal hate crime and firearms offences. He pleaded not guilty to the federal accusations in July but appears to have had second thoughts with a capital punishment sentence hanging over his head.

“Just as Payton Gendron entered a plea of guilty to the indictment in county court, he is prepared to enter a plea of guilty in federal court in exchange of the same sentence, which is the sentence of life in prison, without parole,” defence lawyer Sonya Zoghlin said, according to CNN.

Federal prosecutors were expected to discuss the issue with defence team early next year, the outlet reported.

The Justice Department has not decided what punishment it would seek.

Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, is set to be sentenced for state charges in February.

He was indicted on 10 counts of first-degree murder and 10 counts of second-degree murder, all of them as hate crimes, as well as three counts of attempted murder and a single count of illegal weapon possession.

Gendron additionally faced one count of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, becoming the first person charged under a newly enacted New York statute.

The gunman streamed live video of the May 14 assault to the social media platform Twitch after posting material online showing he had drawn inspiration from other racially motivated mass killings, authorities said.

-with AAP