CRIME AND TWO PUNISHMENTS

The philosopher Confucius wrote it hundreds of years ago: if you are
setting out to take revenge, first dig two graves.

Kim Walker may or may not have had revenge on his mind when he gunned
down his daughter's boyfriend, but when he put James Hayward in a
grave back in 2003, he certainly was digging a grave for himself.

Because the jury convicted him of second-degree murder last week, the
judge had no choice but to sentence him to life in prison, although
with the opportunity for parole after 10 years have been served.

It's the minimum allowable sentence.

Walker felt he was protecting his daughter from a drug addict's life,
which generally becomes an existence of unrelenting misery ending in
an early death.

His solution was to get rid of her drug-dealing, drug-using boyfriend.

Outside the Yorkton, Sask., courthouse following the conviction and
sentencing, Walker's daughter Jadah declared her father a hero.

"He saved my life," she said. "He did what he had to do."

If being a good parent just means being willing to sacrifice your own
life for your family, Kim Walker surely passes the test. He'll come
out of jail an old man, even with the minimum sentence.

On the question of whether he "did what he had to do," obviously the
law disagrees with the Walker family.

For many Canadians who have followed news reports of the trial, what
makes this particular story so tragic is the law's interpretation of
Kim Walker's act of violence, compared with the almost casual
violence that we read about every day.

The day after newspapers carried the story of Walker's conviction and
sentencing, and while Jadah was telling reporters that her father
saved her life, in Grande Prairie, Stephen Curtis Smith was being
convicted for bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron.

Drugs, alcohol and an extended argument led to the horrible early
death of Bonnie May Weir, at the hands of a man whom even the defence
council admitted had been a drug user and drug dealer since his teens.

"This is a classical drug- and alcohol-induced scenario," said
defence lawyer David Abbey. Smith has struggled through life and had
been addicted to drugs since he was a teen, Abbey said.

He sold drugs to support his habit.

But as we invariably hear about addicts facing serious jail time,
Smith, 30, has tried to turn his life around. His lawyer pleaded: "He
is not an individual we should be throwing away. He is an individual
with promise."

Thus, with credit for the time already spent in custody, Smith's
seven-year sentence -- not for second-degree murder, but merely for
manslaughter -- has only four years left on it. Parents, court
observers and, no doubt, not a few drug dealers have to notice a
discrepancy here, even if the courts don't.

"The death of Ms. Wier is an example of the ultimate act of cruelty
- -- the ending of a life before its time," Justice G.W. Paul said
during Smith's sentencing hearing on Friday. No ending more cruel
than being bashed to death with a tire iron, except perhaps being
shot five times, in the eyes of the law.

Who suffered more in the ultimate cruelty of their deaths?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

What was in the heart of the killers seems to be more of the deciding
factor in whether an early death is worthy of life in prison or
merely seven years.

Smith, the lifetime drug addict and drug dealer for many years, could
kill in blind rage with less culpability than the father who (at
least in his own heart) could find no other recourse to save his
daughter from the clutches of the kind of person who drug dealers become.

Blind rage is deplorable, but a calculated decision to kill is worse.

All lives are valuable, but the law is valued above any individual
person; you cannot take the law into your own hands.

If you think you can, first dig two graves.

Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.