Since PP lost a brother and has an occupation where she has 1st hand experience dealing with the consequences of these types of situations, she's far from objective. I can give her a pass due to what she's been thru, but if I were a defense attorney on such a case, she's be the first one I'd hand walking papers to during Voir Dire.
While I learned long ago to never say never, situations such as this will not meet the level of 1st degree murder. Let's speak hypothetically however and just assume that such a conviction could be obtained. Not all states even have a death penalty, but for those that do, you would still need to meet that state's threshold of special circumstances that would enable the state to even seek such a sentence. Perhaps if child under the age of 7 to 12 (depending on state and I'm just using it as an example), might raise it to that level if it would apply, but there is no other circumstance that I can think of that would qualify it. At that however, there has to be not only intend, but it has to be "actual," intent, as opposed to, "implied," as would fit the bit the bill for the accidental shooting in your earlier example, raising it to possibly a murder 2 status over manslaughter.
These types of cases will never (there is that awful word lol) be deemed death penalty worthy. Nor should they be, IMO. You are absolutely right in that there is a huge difference between one who plans to murder as compared to one who may just accidentally kill, or even in circumstances where poor choices were made that resulted in negligent homicide.
If it comes down to it, I want my tax dollar to keep those who intended to kill locked up for life. Actually, I'd like some of them to be marched to town hall and hung in the middle of main street right after the verdict is read (but that's for another thread).
