TROUBLING ISSUES COME TO LIGHT IN WALKER CASE

Jadah Walker could be the poster child for all that is wrong with the
federal government determination to increase number of crimes that
carry mandatory minimum sentences.

As this 20-year-old woman looked at TV cameras Wednesday and
confessed she did not believe she would be alive today had her
parents not taken the steps to protect her when she was a vulnerable
child of 16, it was impossible not to feel sympathy for the father
who now faces at least four years in prison because politicians took
away the right to pass judgment from judges.

This is not to say that Kim Walker, the Yorkton welder who shot his
daughter's 24-year-old boyfriend five times, should be allowed to walk away.

But it is clearly difficult for many to believe Walker deserves to
spend years in jail for trying to save his daughter.

Consider the difficult situation faced by the family. According to
evidence presented at trial, the Walkers learned their 16-year-old
daughter was addicted to morphine, which was being supplied to her by
her unrepentant boyfriend.

The parents appealed to the police and to the courts for relief, and
had Jadah committed to a mental-health facility in a fruitless effort
to extricate her from the dangerous situation.

Walker, a mild-mannered man who didn't have a criminal record until
this incident, took Hayward's life as he tried to extricate his
daughter from what he felt was a dangerous situation.

Under normal circumstances, Canadians would consider a person who
takes a gun from a locked enclosure, loads it, drives to another
house and shoots someone as having committed the most egregious of
crimes. It's reflected in Canadian criminal law that provides a
minimum sentence of 25 years for people convicted of first degree murder.

And even if the offence could be deemed not to have been premeditated
(and therefore second degree), it still would require a mandatory
minimum of 10 years.

But, just as was the case when Robert Latimer was found guilty of
second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, the circumstances
of this crime make the mandatory penalty a tough decision to accept.

The Latimer jury asked the judge to impose a much lighter sentence
than the mandatory minimum set out in law. The trial judge agreed,
but the Supreme Court overturned the lighter sentence and sent the
Wilkie farmer to prison for at least a decade.

This decision could be seen as a contradiction of the Henry
Morgantaler cases of the 1970s and '80s. The Quebec-based doctor
admitted to performing thousands of abortions but in three subsequent
trials juries refused to convict him.

The judge in the first trial overruled the jury and jailed the
doctor, but the case eventually led to an amendment to the Criminal
Code that prevents appellate judges from overturning such acquittals
to impose prison terms.

Considering that Canada was split at the time over the right of women
to determine what to do with their bodies, it wasn't surprising that
juries would be equally divided.

Even though Morgantaler made no bones about having broken Canada's
abortion laws, the juries decided he shouldn't go to jail.

In 1988 the Supreme Court ruled Canada's abortion laws were in
violation of the Charter of Rights, and the country hasn't had a law
that governs abortions since.

But a more recent decision by the high court adds another twist. In
2005, it ruled that Quebec violated its own Charter of Rights when it
denied Dr. Jacques Chaoulli a licence so he could offer his services
as an independent private hospital. The court said this denied his
patients the right to life and security of person.

It was one thing to have a public health system, a slim majority of
the Supreme Court justices ruled, but if the state didn't have the
resources to provide timely care for patients, it couldn't make it
illegal for people to seek redress outside that system.

Having gone to authorities and finding them unable to save his
daughter, Walker might have argued Jadah's right to life and security
required him to act outside the system.

While such arguments might have been adequate to reduce the penalty
if there wasn't a mandatory minimum, a jury would literally have to
consider allowing Walker to get away with murder if it acquitted him
on the defence of necessity or the Charter argument on the right to
security of the person.

And, as odious as it may be to have the minimum penalty for a crime
determined in advance by politicians who know nothing of the case, it
is even more horrific to consider Canada becoming a country where
it's open season on even the worst of boyfriends.

The case illustrates to a government that has not only pressed for
more mandatory minimum sentences but has claimed to be family
friendly, the danger of prejudging complicated cases.