Does killing abusive partner or parent is still crime

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This makes me think of that episode of Touched By An Angel about the man on death row who shot his abusive drunken stepfather to death. It felt unfair to me that he got the death sentence because the person he murdered was very abusive towards him and his mother, but he brought a gun to the house with the intention of killing his stepfather so you can't deny that it was premeditated.

I don't think it really happens that way in the U.S. these days though. Maybe in the old days when the death penalty was more common as a punishment for murder, but nowadays it's actually very hard to get the death penalty in this country unless you do something especially heinous like torture and rape the victim to death, shoot up or blow up a lot of innocent people, kill a police officer, or commit a felony while commiting the murder such as armed robbery. Even when a defendant does something to qualify for the death penalty they rarely get it these days.

I think in this country a murder like what happened in that particular episode would more likely result in a life sentence for the man and not the death penalty.

That's for the courts to decide. If you can win on self-defence than it's not a crime. If it was done in cold blood to get revenge, then it's a crime. If the defendant's life wasn't threatened in that moment then why didn't she contact the authorities?

Fear, many women are afraid to leave their abusers because they don't know what they are going to do to them when they leave. Will they hunt them down and kill them? Will they go and kill their kids for revenge? That is why it takes so long for women to leave their abusive partners.