The dead person is a victim, and in a perfect society we'd just execute the killer. 1:1.
In reality, the justice system is imperfect, inequal access to defense, imperfect identification of killers, etc.
All murder is bad.
But I'd certainly say murdering a good person is worse than murdering a bad one. And if a family, who on average has more incentive to think well of the victim than anyone, doesn't... should that be ignored?
I hear what you are saying but honestly yes it should be ignored. For reasons of both fairness but more importantly I want justice to be blind. I don't want the police or prosecutors to be able to decide that person A was a dick or was a republican or a democrat or white / black so his murder is not as important. It could also lead to situations where the murder of a rich person is prosecuted more harshly than that of a poor one as the rich person donated so much to charity. The law has to be blind and based on clearly defined parameters.
But I feel like discretionary prosecution is already breaking blindness.
And furthermore, perversely-incentivized blindness. Get a high conviction rate, by throwing the book at people charged with "PR bad" crimes, regardless of the individual, and as long as they aren't politically connected and potentially useful in your future political career.
Compared to that motivation of your average DA / USA, "How surviving family feels" doesn't seem worse.
I agree with you in regards to how the current system is not blind and discretionary prosecution is a negative. I am all for pretty much anything that removes a prosecutors ability to give a pass to a preferred class of offender. By that I generally mean police officers. Giving them an additional power to decide the value of a victim based on their family or their biased opinion of goodness is not a net positive and just further greys the area. I hear what you are saying and actually sympathize with it but I think the solution should be to focus on removing as much discretion as possible as it just gives prosecutors and law enforcement decision making power they should not have.
In reality, the justice system is imperfect, inequal access to defense, imperfect identification of killers, etc.
All murder is bad.
But I'd certainly say murdering a good person is worse than murdering a bad one. And if a family, who on average has more incentive to think well of the victim than anyone, doesn't... should that be ignored?