The
Trolley Problem?
You know were that ends.
I would imagine that one would get the murder rap no matter which one they decided to die (Trolley Problem).
I suppose it becomes more interesting if it was a 5 to 5 problem (equal number of people), but traits were different....fat, Jewish, Black, etc. Interesting because it would test racism and bias. Certainly age would be an issue. In many real cases of life or death, the young are saved because the old don't have long to live anyway. By the same token, adults have more memories and more people depending upon them than infants. So, do we save a pregnant mother or save her baby if one or the other has to die? (That really does happen from time to time). Doctors have to pre-think these scenarios so that their actions are instantaneous. Even they are stumped by certain factors.
All of this is like playing God....deciding life or death.
Inaction, in itself, is an action.
One could also argue about culpability of gang violence. Surely a victim would have a chance to survive against just one gang member, but when surrounded by a hoard of gang members, each one is responsible for containing the victim, and, even though only one pulled a trigger or plunged a knife, all are guilty of murder. Courts are reluctant to dish out death sentences in these cases because the law requires certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt. So, with more than one guilty person, they can each point the finger at others and evade capital punishment for themselves.
This was obviously the reasoning behind the Oklahoma Murrah Federal Building bombing in which the FBI intentionally withheld evidence in order to convict Timothy McVeigh. Of course, we all remember that McVeigh sued because the information was withheld, and he won his case (only to be given the death penalty later). But, the FBI intentionally suppressed information about John Doe 2 (the man in the white hat with the purple flame pattern, observed by no less than 25 witnesses). The FBI had falsely claimed that McVeigh did not have help from John Doe 2, and it was a shared hallucination of all 25 people who claim that they saw him. The FBI also silenced Terry Nichols who insisted that there was another accomplice, John Doe 2. The idea was that they had to get a death penalty conviction of Timothy McVeigh, and that would not occur if Tim could blame Doe and Doe could blame Tim (each has plausible deniability, unless the FBI cheated and lied under oath at McVeigh's trial, which, of course, they did).