> If a person had gone out and murdered two planefuls of people
How can this possibly be murder? Negligence, man-slaughter, maybe, I don't know the facts. But how could it possibly meet any standard required for murder?
Not sure how it works in the US, but in Germany this would be possible. Here, it doesn't have to be "intent", meaning you want it to happen. There is another concept called "billigend in Kauf nehmen", which means you know your actions could cause this, but don't care if that's the outcome. This is different from plain negligence, where you just believe it won't happen.
How can this possibly be murder? Negligence, man-slaughter, maybe, I don't know the facts. But how could it possibly meet any standard required for murder?