Howard County State's Attorney Marna L. McLendon announced yesterday that she is seeking the death penalty against a Columbia banker accused of killing his two preschool-age daughters -- marking the first time in her nearly eight years in office that the prosecutor has opted to pursue the state's most severe punishment.

But McLendon, who filed the required paperwork yesterday, would not explain her decision to seek death for Robert Emmett Filippi, saying that too much comment "could prejudice the whole case at this point."

"It was thoroughly processed by senior staff and myself, but it is my decision ... and I take it seriously," she said.

The prosecutor's announcement was met with dismay from Filippi's defense attorney and some surprise by local court officials who have watched McLendon opt against death in every other eligible case during her two terms and said they wondered at her silence.

James B. Kraft, who represents Filippi, said his client's family is against the death penalty and it is his "understanding" that the girls' mother, Naoko Nakajima, is as well. Nakajima's lawyer, William G. Salmond, did not return a call left at his College Park office but left word there that he would not comment on the criminal case.

Filippi and Nakajima were in the midst of a divorce and custody dispute at the time of the killings.

"Requesting the death penalty indicates that the concerns of the victims were the last thing to be taken into consideration here," Kraft said. "Clearly, Ms. McLendon is much more interested in public vengeance than in caring for those who survive."

McLendon, who is not seeking re-election and leaves office Jan. 6, would say only that she followed her office's "protocol" for death-eligible cases, a rigorous review that seeks input from interested parties, including the victim's family and the defendant.

It would be "inappropriate," she said, for her to say more.

Filippi, 44, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the strangulation deaths of his daughters, 4-year-old Nicole Filippi and her sister, Lindsey, 2. Investigators called to the house late June 9 found the girls in an upstairs bed in the family's Harmel Drive house with rope around their necks and wood that investigators believe was used to tighten the ligatures by their bodies, according to court documents.

Filippi, who, according to lawyers, feared that Nakajima would take their children back to her native Japan, was sitting at the kitchen table with rope marks around his neck and tiny hemorrhages all over his scalp -- signs that he attempted to hang himself, prosecutors have said.

Because Filippi is accused of killing both girls in "the same incident," the case is death-eligible, according to court papers.

And the fact that young children were involved might have influenced the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, experts said.

"I think the public is shocked whenever a child is a victim, certainly outraged. I think that's what drives death-penalty prosecutions, rather than 'This is a case where there's a worst-of-the-worst offense,'" said Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, an organization critical of the way the death penalty is applied.

Although the decision was McLendon's to make -- by statute, she had to file notice at least 30 days before the scheduled Dec. 9 trial date -- the case will not be hers to try. The death notice is likely to force a postponement of the trial date until after the first of the year, leaving the prosecution to her successor.

The new state's attorney, either Democrat Timothy J. McCrone or Republican Robert R. Tousey, can withdraw the death notice or pursue the capital case, court officials said.

Filippi, who has been at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a maximum-security state mental hospital in Jessup, since just after the deaths of his daughters, was initially found incompetent to stand trial but was deemed competent last month. Kraft would not comment yesterday on whether he expects to plead that Filippi is not criminally responsible or seek some other plea arrangement.

He did say, however, that the "surviving members" of the girls' family "do not want this case to go to trial."

"To make them relive all of these events will certainly not advance the healing process, but only serve to reopen the deep wounds that already exist," he said.