Did Gollum deserve death?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

But the very fact that he had to come up with excuses, and resort to them time and again shows he has morality.

It showed he had morality. And 'morality', in the sense of a moral value system, will be skewed by the individual's mental state.

Ok, here something more to prove just how inaccurate your position is, in regards to the book itself:
Is this good enough? I somehow doubt it...

This is shorthand. Whoever compiled the Tale of Years is referring to the incident, but how the compiler (Tolkien, Findegil or whoever) knows what was going through Gollum's mind at that point is beyond me. In the story itself the incident as described does not mention 'repentance'. The 'repentance' is an interpretation which the reader does not have to accept. You seem to take a very literalist approach to the whole thing....