> It's interesting that the charge was not simply first degree murder

Murder (including felony murder) itself (except in special contexts and locations that don't apply here) is not a federal crime. This was a federal prosecution.

Murder is a federal crime: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1111#a Federal murder may be prosecuted separately and in addition to state murder, without double jeopardy applying. The same is true for military jurisdiction.

The only issue is whether there is federal jurisdiction over the murder. As the crime resulting in the killing was deemed to be within federal jurisdiction, that would seem to imply such a murder was within federal jurisdiction.

You need to reread your own citation. Murder is defined in subsection (a) of your cite, but the actual federally prosecutable crime is in subsection (b), and is only when a murder is committed “Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States”, itself defined at 18 USC § 7 [0]. The offense here did not occur in the special maritime and territorial jursidiction of the United States.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/7

My understanding is that (b) only defines punishment for where federal jurisdiction uniquely applies, and does not limit the jurisdiction to specific locations. Particularly federal murder is applied to the murder of federal officials everywhere.

https://www.wklaw.com/10-ways-murder-becomes-a-federal-crime... Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed. This would suggest to me that this killing could also be federal murder.

> Particularly federal murder is applied to the murder of federal officials everywhere.

Yes, kind of; there is a separate provision for that, 18 USC § 1114, which applies the punishments in 18 USC § 1111 (for murder), 18 USC § 1112 (for manslaughter), and 18 USC § 1113 (for attempts at either murder or manslaughter) to such acts committee against federal officials independent of the jursidictional limitations in those statutes.

> Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed.

Insofar as robbery is a qualifying offense under 18 USC 1111(a), that would appear to be technically correct if the jurisdictional requirements in 18 USC 1111(b) were met, but is not actually the general felony murder rule, which does not exist in federal law, but an analog covering only enumerated offenses written directly into the 18 USC 1111(a) definition of murder and still only applicable where 18 USC 1111(b) or some other statute provides a federal punishment for murder. More importantly, for killings in the course of bank robbery more generally, there is a separate provisions making that a capital offense without reference to 18 USC § 1111, within the bank robbery law (18 USC § 2113), the killing (and hostage taking) provision is subsection (e); that's mostly how felony-murder like rules are applied in federal criminal law, by specific punishment for killing accompanying the predicate offense.