i don't see the difference in killing your wife because she's cheating on you and killing your wife for life insurance money. the first one is lesser because it could be heat of the moment? give me a break, we've ALL been pissed, in fact I've been pissed enough to where I could of killed someone the difference is I didn't because I know it's wrong. just because that's the way it is doesn't mean it's right or ok, it's still retarded.You've just pointed to one of many hundreds of examples where motive *does* matter, the entire legal framework of homicide. According to your logic, it shouldn't matter if you kill your wife because you walked in on her sleeping with another man, or if you killed her for life insurance. Yet is typically does matter. It may get your crime reduced to Murder 2 or Man 1, depending on state law. Yet both circumstances are intentional killings.
A example more salient to the issue here is a case where a woman kills a man who molested her child. Let's say the man was incarcerated and she killed him while in court, so there was no argument for self-defense or defense of others. You think that person will get the same sentence as someone who kills someone just for the fun of it?
Motives matter in our criminal justice system. Sometimes they will affect the actual crime with which you're charged. More often they will be taken into consideration by the judge who determines your sentence. The notion that motives don't matter, particularly in sentencing, is simply not grounded in reality.
- wolf