The lawyer for one of the defendants in a massacre that left five people dead at a Wendy's restaurant in Queens last spring said yesterday that her client is mentally retarded and therefore cannot be put to death if convicted in the case.

The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, was to decide this week whether to seek the death penalty against Craig Godineaux, 30, and John Taylor, 36, who were charged in the execution-style slayings at a Wendy's in Flushing. But Mr. Brown agreed yesterday to wait another two months while prosecutors investigate the claim that Mr. Godineaux is mentally retarded.

New York is one of 13 states that has banned the execution of mentally retarded defendants. The decision yesterday in the Wendy's case comes at a time when there is a growing national debate over whether mentally retarded criminals should be put to death in states that allow capital punishment.

The two men were arraigned in late July, giving Mr. Brown, who has sought the death penalty in other murder cases, 120 days to decide whether to pursue the death penalty. A 60-day extension was granted yesterday by Justice Steven W. Fisher of State Supreme Court in Queens.

Prosecutors have described Mr. Godineaux as Mr. Taylor's accomplice in one of the most horrific crimes in the borough's history. Mr. Taylor worked at the Wendy's where the killings took place, as well as at a clothing store in Jamaica, where Mr. Godineaux was a security guard.

The lawyer for Mr. Godineaux said yesterday that her client was mentally retarded, but she declined to provide the type of specific information about Mr. Godineaux that is used to determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded, including his I.Q.

''Craig Godineaux is mentally retarded,'' said his lawyer, Colleen Brady, of the Capital Division of the Legal Aid Society. ''Under New York law, that means that in a case like this, he could not receive the death penalty. We are grateful that the district attorney has extended the time in which to consider this matter and investigate it further.''

The prosecution must now investigate whether Mr. Godineaux's mental status meets New York's legal definition for mental retardation as it applies to death penalty cases.

Experts classify people as mentally retarded if their I.Q.'s are below about 70 and they have an inability to adapt to daily life.

In New York, mental retardation is defined under state criminal law as ''significantly subaverage general intelligence and functioning,'' accompanied by behavioral problems and evident before the defendant turned 18.

In order for Mr. Godineaux, who has served three prison terms in the past decade for robbery and drug offenses, to be deemed mentally retarded, proof of such a condition has to be found in school records, tests or other documents from his childhood.

In addition, psychological evaluations will be conducted by experts for both the defense and the prosecution over the next two months, prosecutors and Ms. Brady said.

''The defense has offered some information with regard to intellectual functioning in the past,'' said Mary de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown, referring to Mr. Godineaux's mental status. But she said evidence that he was mentally retarded before he became an adult would be pivotal in deciding if the defense's claim has merit.

In criminal cases, defendants deemed mentally retarded are still considered responsible for the crime, unlike defendants who successfully plead not guilty by reason of insanity. In New York, a mentally retarded person can be sentenced to life in prison without parole, but not death.

In the May massacre, five Wendy's employees were killed after being bound and gagged and forced to march, one by one, into a freezer room. There, they were shot in the head. Two other employees survived.

Dozens of relatives of the victims met privately with Mr. Brown yesterday, Ms. de Bourbon said, as he explained the latest development in the case. The relatives could not be reached yesterday for comment, but several have said at earlier hearings that they are eager to see Mr. Taylor and Mr. Godineaux put to death.

Two men with criminal histories, one of whom, the police said, staged five terrifying gunpoint robberies at fast-food outlets in New York last year, were arrested yesterday and charged in the execution-style shootings of seven bound-and-gagged workers at a Wendy's restaurant in Queens.

Less than 48 hours after the grisly massacre in Wendy's basement walk-in refrigerator, in which five victims were slain with bullets to the head and two were shot in the head and left for dead, the police -- acting on a tip -- seized John B. Taylor, 36, outside a relative's house in Brentwood, in Suffolk County. They said he had worked at several fast-food restaurants in New York, including the Wendy's where the massacre occurred.

A short time later, detectives in Queens said they had taken into custody a second man, Craig Godineaux, 30, a security guard who lives in South Jamaica. He was seized at the SCR Clothing store at 89-74 165th Street, Jamaica, where he works. The authorities said that he had a record of two convictions for selling drugs and one for robbery, and that he had served three state prison terms -- of 10 months, two years and three years -- in the past decade.

The case against the suspects appeared to be strong. Detectives said Mr. Taylor and Mr. Godineaux made statements implicating each other in the crimes. Each acknowledged that they had robbed the Wendy's restaurant, but Mr. Taylor said that Mr. Godineaux had shot the employees, and Mr. Godineaux said that Mr. Taylor had done the shooting.

Investigators said Mr. Taylor had a .380-caliber pistol -- the same caliber as the gun used in the shootings -- in a belt pack when he was seized. The weapon was turned over to the Police Department laboratory for ballistics tests to determine if it was the gun used in the killings.

After arresting Mr. Taylor, investigators searched his sister-in-law's house and found cash, in a canvas bag, that was believed to have been stolen from Wendy's, and a videotape that had apparently been taken by the assailants from the restaurant's surveillance camera at the time of the killings. The videotape, officials said, was likely to show the two men in the dining area of Wendy's, but not the carnage in the basement.

Moreover, the investigators said they had found Mr. Taylor's palm print on a box in the blood-spattered refrigerator, and they said he had been identified by a witness as one of two men who emerged from the Wendy's, on Main Street in Flushing, about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, minutes after the shootings. The witness said one of the suspects was tall and the other was short. Mr. Godineaux is 6 feet 4 inches tall, while Mr. Taylor is 5 feet 5.

Patrick E. Kelleher, the first deputy police commissioner, said at a news conference last night that Mr. Taylor had been identified by a tip to the Police Department's Crime Stoppers phone line not long after the shootings.

About $2,400 was taken from an office in the basement, officials said, and the shootings -- which stunned the city and even some law enforcement officers with their brutality -- were apparently carried out to eliminate witnesses to the robbery, some of whom might have recognized one of the assailants.

The suspects were charged last night with armed robbery and other charges, including first-degree murder, which can be punishable by death. The police said it was unclear whether one or two men had fired the shots in what appeared to be an inside job, with the assailants aware of the Wendy's operations and layout and the manager's name, which they invoked in a ruse to get in at closing time.

Mr. Taylor jumped $3,500 bail in a robbery case last autumn, and a dispute erupted between prosecutors and court administrators yesterday over the amount of the bail and the handling of the case by the Queens district attorney and a Criminal Court judge.

Mr. Taylor was said to have worked at several New York fast-food outlets in recent years, including a McDonald's in Manhattan that he was convicted of burglarizing in 1996, and as recently as last fall at the Wendy's in Flushing.

The swift arrests came as more than 100 detectives worked around the clock in pursuit of numerous leads in a case that had drawn expressions of shock from city officials, prosecutors, police officials, employees of fast-food outlets and ordinary New Yorkers.

Wendy's and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had announced rewards totaling $60,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the assailants, said that a relief fund had been established to aid the families of the victims.

Hundreds of people crowded the sidewalk outside the Wendy's yesterday as a makeshift memorial of flowers, lighted candles and written prayers grew against the wall of the restaurant. Passers-by stopped to pray and some spoke of their sorrow.

''I feel bad,'' Rinkel Bhasin, 23, said after slipping behind a police barricade to add her bouquet of white daisies to the memorial. She said she had often patronized the Wendy's.

One of the two survivors, Jaquione Johnson, 18, who lives with an aunt in Jamaica, Queens, underwent six hours of surgery yesterday for his head wound and remained in critical condition in an intensive care unit of the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens.

The second survivor, Patrick Castro, 22, of Queens, was released from the same hospital late Thursday and was under police protection. Mr. Castro, who had been shot through both cheeks, played dead until the assailants departed, then wriggled free of the duct tape bindings and summoned help with a call to 911.

Five families, meantime, were making arrangements for funerals. Those killed were Anita C. Smith, 22, of South Jamaica; Ramon Nazario, 44, of Flushing; Jeremy Mele, 18, of Neptune, N.J.; Ali Ibadat, 40, of Ridgewood, Queens; and Jean Dumel Auguste, 27, the Wendy's night manager, who lived in Brooklyn.

Commissioner Kelleher noted last night that Mr. Auguste had dismissed Mr. Taylor from his job at Wendy's last October, but he did not cite that as a motive for the shootings.

While little was known of Mr. Godineaux last night, two neighbors said he was the father of a 5-year-old girl, attended church and was an aspiring rap artist. A woman who identified herself as Mr. Godineaux's mother briefly opened the door of her two-story home in South Jamaica and said: ''I'm just overwhelmed.''

Mr. Taylor was described by acquaintances as the father of two sons and a daughter, who had lived with his children in an apartment in Lefrak City, in Elmhurst, Queens.

''He was a very secretive guy,'' said George Gross, a neighbor from across the hall who said he also did Mr. Taylor's tax returns over the past decade. ''He never opened up to anybody.'' He said Mr. Taylor often dressed in a suit and tie, even when he worked in fast-food outlets or as a maintenance man for a Caldor store.

Law enforcement officials said that in 1996, Mr. Taylor worked as an assistant manager at two McDonald's restaurants in Manhattan, one at 341 Fifth Avenue, and the other at 22 East 42nd Street. On June 24, 1996, the officials said, employees just arriving for work at 4 a.m. discovered Mr. Taylor and a second man in a burglary attempt at the Fifth Avenue store.

The two men fled, but Mr. Taylor was recognized, and the police arrested him a day later at the 42nd Street McDonald's. On July 12, 1996, he pleaded guilty to third-degree burglary. While prosecutors requested a six-month jail term, Mr. Taylor, as a first offender, was sentenced to five years of probation.

Former co-workers at the Fifth Avenue restaurant said Mr. Taylor was involved in several scams, including stealing receipts and placing ghost workers on the payroll and taking their pay for himself.

Law enforcement officials said that Mr. Taylor robbed or tried to rob at least five fast-food restaurants in Queens last year, all within an eight-day period in June.

One June 15, they said, he held up a Burger King at 78-03 Queens Boulevard and got away in a dark green car. Twenty minutes later, they said, he held up a McDonald's restaurant at 80-03 Queens Boulevard. The authorities said he escaped from the two robberies with an undetermined amount of cash.

Within a 30-minute period on June 19, the police said, Mr. Taylor held up two McDonald's restaurants, one at 38-02 Queens Boulevard and the other at 45-06 Greenpoint Boulevard. He got away with $1,192 in the Greenpoint robbery, the police said.

Four days later, on June 23, he returned to the McDonald's on Greenpoint Boulevard about 8 p.m. It was crowded, a manager recalled, and the man flashed a gun stuck in his waistband and demanded money. The clerk at the cash register recognized him from the earlier holdup.

''Is this the same thing?'' she said, according to court papers.

Mr. Taylor said yes.

Following his instructions, she stuffed a McDonald's carryout bag with cash -- $427 -- and he walked out. But as he did so, the store manager followed and, spotting Police Officer Michael F. Garcia walking his beat, frantically pointed at Mr. Taylor, who ran.

Officer Garcia, who had talked to the manager about the earlier robbery, caught Mr. Taylor a few blocks away. After he was identified by the victims, Mr. Taylor was charged with first-degree robbery and criminal possession of stolen property. He was not charged with weapons possession because the gun turned out to be a starter's pistol.

By the time of his arrest, detectives investigating the series of robberies at fast-food restaurants had discovered what they thought was a pattern -- the description of the suspect and his method of operation were the same in each case -- and they matched Mr. Taylor and the robbery for which he was arrested.

He was arraigned the next day before Judge Pauline Mullins in Queens Criminal Court. Prosecutors asked for bail of $100,000, citing the charge of robbery, a violent felony, admissions the suspect had made and the fact that a weapon had been used. Judge Mullins, however, set bail at $3,500, a sum Mr. Taylor was unable to raise until Aug. 10, when a friend obtained a bond to free him.

David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the State Office of Court Administration, yesterday defended the bail decision and said that the fault lay with the office of the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown. Mr. Bookstaver said the bail would have been increased if prosecutors had sought an indictment from a grand jury during the weeks when Mr. Taylor was jailed at Rikers Island. That would have carried the case into State Supreme Court.

Mary de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown, disputed that contention. ''In most instances, the Supreme Court will not disturb the bail set by the Criminal Court,'' she said. She said no indictment was sought because the prosecutors were conducting plea negotiations with Mr. Taylor's lawyer.

Mr. Taylor, who was still on probation from his 1996 conviction when he was arrested in the Queens robbery, was to appear Jan. 6 at a probation violation hearing. But the plea negotiations broke down in September, and in October he failed to show up for a court appearance. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest on Nov. 5. He has been a fugitive since then.

Mr. Taylor was arrested yesterday at his sister-in-law's home at 11 Dillmont Street in Brentwood, a short time after Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mr. Kelleher held a news conference to release his name and photograph as a person wanted for questioning in the massacre.

New York City detectives had placed the house -- a shabby, tan, split-level -- under surveillance during the day, unaware that he was already inside. As it happened, a child was involved in a bicycle accident outside the home, and the Brentwood police arrived. During the commotion, Mr. Taylor came out to watch, and was seized on the stoop.