American Homicide

So the latest proposal is to have two kinds of murder - first degree and second degree. Just like the Yanks (why do we always have to follow the damned Yanks?). How can there be degrees of murder? The victim is just as dead and the bereaved family is just as desolate and lost however the murder is judged.
In the UK there is no death penalty. I agree with this for two reasons. Firstly the death penalty is given in the name of all the people and I, for one, could not ask anyone (especially the official executioner) to kill another just as I could not wilfully kill someone myself. Secondly there is no real justice in the "eye for an eye" argument - two people die instead of one and the victim cannot be reincarnated neither can a dead perpetrator repent.
At the moment "life" imprisonment can mean as little as 8 years with remission for "good behaviour", whereas stealing a few million pounds from a bank can attract a much larger sentence. I sometimes wonder about the value of life compared to the value of commerce in the capitalist world.
We already have a two-tier system whereby the killing has to be proved to be pre-meditated. If it is proven then it is murder, if not then it could be manslaughter - which attracts a much less severe sentence. There is a sub-section of the latter definition which a Coroner can decide: death by misadventure. All these definitions are difficult enough to come by without adding further sub-sections to the the list.
It all boils down to our values. What value do we place on the life of a human being? Does killing another put right the killing of the first? Does anyone benefit from the execution of a murderer? Should life imprisonment mean just that - life until you die?
Do I have any answers? No. Greater minds than mine have wrestled with this conundrum over many centuries.
I am more than uncomfortable with the death penalty but I am still trying to understand how there can be more than one level of murder. Perhaps if we valued life above all other things then we would truly be able to understand the misery inflicted on both the bereaved and society in general.