This won't be a popular position, but I'm not a fan of capital punishment in cases stemming from crimes of passion, or simple assaults that escalate out of control.
I think it's best we reserve the death penalties for people who commit murder in a plainly premeditated manner, or for people who kill someone during the commission of another felony, like car-jacking or home invasion.
I just don't see how executing someone because a domestic disturbance, a heat of the moment fight, spiral out of control, improves our society. I just don't.
One could also argue that the punishment should be worse, if you kill someone you claim to love more than others.
We have precedent for holding people to higher levels of responsibility for their actions, for example, while armed. What might be simple assault becomes ‘simple assault, while armed’ - whether the gun is touched or not - and that is far, far more serious a charge than otherwise.
Cases where things ‘escalate out of control’ - well, that means you have two willing participants there, they are both guilty for escalating things. They person who kills the other gets no break because “Well I loved him”.
We already recognizethe difference between 1st degree (intentional homicide/murder) and 2nd degree (unintentional homicide/murder). Or even to a lesser case, manslaughter. There may be other even more accidental death types of charges (death by motor vehicle, etc). Then of course, justifiable homicide.
Murder is murder....quite right...your position is unpopular with most conservatives and I would add...illogical.