The first federal death penalty execution of a New York resident in more than 50 years may be on the horizon following the conviction yesterday of a Staten Island gang member who executed two undercover police detectives.

In the U.S. courthouse in Brooklyn yesterday, the foreman of the jury called out “guilty” in a loud voice for each of the 10 counts in Ronell Wilson’s federal racketeering indictment. The jury will return to the courthouse January 10 to hear more testimony before deciding whether to impose a sentence of death or life in prison without parole.

Police officers unable to find seating in the crowded courtroom lined the hallway outside as the verdict was announced.

“The verdict is a victory for justice and for police officers who continue to risk their lives for the public,” Police Commissioner Kelly said in a statement. “They need to know that cop killers will be brought to justice.”

The jury found that Wilson killed two detectives in the course of committing a carjacking and robbery on behalf of a violent organization. The crime occurred in northeastern Staten Island not far from the projects of the Stapleton Houses, which prosecutors say served as the base for the gang.

The two slain detectives, James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews, were members of the police department’s elite Firearms Investigations Unit, which targets the city’s illicit gun market. Nemorin had previously purchased a gun from a member of the gang, which prosecutors called the Stapleton Crew, and he returned on March 10, 2003, the evening of his murder, with his partner, Rodney Andrews, believing they would be able to buy another.

In response to yesterday’s conviction, Mayor Bloomberg reaffirmed his commitment to seizing illegal guns.

Referring to the two slain detectives, Mr. Bloomberg said, “We will continue to honor their memory by doing everything possible to take illegal guns of the street and protect the safety of all New Yorkers.”

At the beginning and end of the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Wilson had at least considered that the men could be police officers, although the criminal charges did not require that Wilson knew the true identity of the men.

Over the course of three weeks of testimony, prosecutors called two members of the Stapleton Crew to testify against Wilson. One of those witnesses, Mitchell Diaz, said members of the gang had discussed the possibility that Nemorin was a police officer. The other gang member prosecutors called to testify, Jessie Jacobus, was with Wilson when he murdered the two detectives. Jacobus, 17 at the time of the shootings, testified that Wilson, then 20, shot both detectives in the head suddenly and without warning. Jacobus testified that the plan had been to rob them.

Attorneys for Mr. Wilson pinned their efforts on undermining Jacobus’s testimony and suggesting that it could have been Jacobus who committed to the murders.

Although Jacobus and Diaz have pleaded guilty to murder in state court, Wilson was tried in federal court so prosecutors could seek the death penalty. The district attorney in Staten Island, Daniel Donovan, turned the case over to federal prosecutors once the state’s highest court declared the state’s death penalty as unconstitutional in 2004.

Not since the 1950s has the federal death penalty been imposed in federal court in New York, although the Justice Department does seek the death penalty with regularity here. In 1954, a lifelong criminal, Gerhard Puff, who shot and killed a federal agent, was executed after being convicted in federal court in Manhattan. The year before, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage, also after being convicted in federal court in Manhattan.

None of the more than 40 inmates currently on federal death row were convicted in New York, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, Richard Dieter, said.

The jury that tried Wilson received the case Tuesday and deliberated for approximately nine hours before delivering its verdict to the judge, Nicholas Garaufis of U.S. District Court, shortly before 2 p.m.

After the verdict was announced, Wilson’s eyes followed each of the jurors as they were individually polled. As deputy marshals escorted him from the courtroom, Wilson shook hands with two of his three attorneys.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment, citing the pending sentencing proceedings. Wilson was represented by court-appointed counsels Ephraim Savitt, Mitchell Dinnerstein, and Kelley Sharkey. Assistant U.S. attorneys Colleen Kavanagh, Jack Smith, and Morris Fodeman, of the eastern district of New York, prosecuted Wilson.