A federal jury will decide as early as next week whether to sentence to death a drug dealer from Queens.

The defendant, Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, is the third man since January to face a possible capital sentence in the U.S. courthouse in Brooklyn.

The jury yesterday convicted McGriff of two capital counts of murder for hire and will return on Tuesday to decide the appropriate sentence. The presiding judge, Frederic Block, has criticized the decision of prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case.

Last week, Judge Block asked the Justice Department to reconsider its decision to seek death, saying that watching the expression of the jurors during the trial’s closing remarks left him certain that the jury would reject a death penalty.

Judge Block said the tax dollars that would go into the trial’s death penalty phase could better be spent elsewhere.

But the government indicated yesterday that it plans to go ahead with the death penalty phase, which will be the third death penalty proceeding in the courthouse in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, a jury here recommended death for a man, Ronell Wilson, who was convicted of killing two undercover detectives in 2003.

Three weeks ago, a jury rejected a death sentence for a Brooklyn gang leader convicted of murder for hire, Martin Aguilar.

“We’re pretty confident this jury will spare the defendant’s life,” an attorney for McGriff, David Ruhnkhe, said following the verdict.

McGriff hired others to kill two rivals, Eric Smith and Troy Singleton, in 2001.

Comments by the mothers of both victims yesterday suggested that neither wants McGriff executed.

“I really don’t know,” Singleton’s mother, Bessie Singleton, told reporters when asked what sentence she would like the jury to recommend.

“I don’t want anyone’s death on my hands,” Ms. Singleton said.

“Death is not the answer,” Smith’s mother, Karen Cameron, told reporters.