The idea that motive /choice of victim/degree of premeditation should play a part in sentencing seems to me perfectly reasonable, and in the UK the statutory reasons for which a judge may consider imposing a full life order (i.e. life with no possibility of parole)
are laid out here. One category for which a whole life order may be imposed is "a murder done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause," which would seem to cover the murder of a rich CEO committed as a political protest against private health insurance, but not one committed in, for example, the course of a robbery.
In this case, it's the motive rather than the identity of the victim that determines the seriousness. If it were alleged Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson during the course of a mugging, there would be no question of federal charges, would there?
How to define terrorism is an interesting, and somewhat fraught, legal question. Much current anti-terrorism legislation was drawn up in the wake of 9/11, with actions committed at the behest of an identifiable organisation such as al Qaeda. It doesn't necessarily catch stochastic terrorism, where an individual with no connection with any particular terrorist group is motivated to commit acts of violence directed against particular individuals, groups or institutions by hostile public rhetoric of some sort (e.g. the
Finsbury Park Mosque attacker in the UK or
"lone wolf" attackers in the US).
While I don't know about the US, it's maybe worth noting that terrorism legislation in the UK isn't so much directed at actions that are already illegal (murder, causing explosions, etc) as in creating new offences, relating to support for terrorist organisations or actions preparatory to or in support of an act of terrorism that would not otherwise be illegal.
What does seem to me extraordinary -- and I understand why it's the case in the US, but it still seems extraordinary to me -- that someone should face two separate criminal proceedings, one on state charges and one on federal charges, for broadly the same set of events.
