ha, so weird, i just watched this ep last night and came here to start a thread about it! thanks angeldarla for getting there first!!
first of all, i don't know if Buffy would have actually gone to jail, 'cause as Wicked correctly pointed out, it wouldn't have been murder, it would have been manslaughter, or death by reckless slaying, or somethng, lol.
anyway, my issue deals more with Buffy's actions directly after. She thought she'd murdered an innocent woman, so her first thought was to turn herself in. she couldn't live with the fact that she had taken a human life, even if it was by accident. and of course this immediatly got me thinking about Faith, and her reaction to accidentally killing the deputy Mayor. her first thought was to hide the body and pretend it never happened.
so i put this question to the boards, what made Buffy react differently from Faith? was it the fact that she'd just returned from heaven? or maybe it has something to do with her friends and family and how her life before differed so much from Faith's. or was a completely personal reason? was Buffy tired to trying to fit back into her life after being pulled out of heaven? or was it an easy escape from her relationship with Spike?
she couldn't deal with how she was feeling, so maybe she decided that she didn't have to. i think maybe, deep down, Buffy wanted to believe that she had killed Katrina, just so that she didn't have to deal with everything anymore.