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The National Parole Board erred in its decision to keep Robert Latimer in prison and his case should be reconsidered, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said yesterday.

Mr. Latimer has served seven years in jail for the second-degree murder of his severely handicapped daughter, a killing he has steadfastly described as an act of mercy.

In a Dec. 5 hearing near Victoria, Mr. Latimer's application for day parole was rejected despite a psychological assessment that concluded he was not at risk to reoffend.

Meanwhile, on the same day, another panel of the parole board met and agreed to release a violent offender whose random, unprovoked attack left a young woman, Ji-Won Park, permanently brain-damaged.

Robert Gary Wallin will be out on parole next month despite concerns about his "pattern of violent outbursts" and his refusal to take medication for mental-health issues.

He is eligible for statutory release on Jan. 18, having served two-thirds of his seven-year sentence for aggravated assault. The board can revoke that right if it deems the offender's risk to the public is unmanageable.

While the board ruled that Mr. Wallin needs psychiatric treatment and counselling, it rejected concerns from prison officials that Mr. Wallin could resume criminal activity unless he is placed in a halfway house.

"According to your case management team, your inability to adjust to new life situations supports the need for intensive, external monitoring once you are released to the community," the board noted. But the two-member panel said it was satisfied with Mr. Wallin's plan to return home to his parents in the Lower Mainland.

Unlike Mr. Latimer, Mr. Wallin expressed regret for his actions, although clinicians said they were unable to determine his risk for violence.

The civil liberties association said the contrast of the two cases underscores the need for a review of the Latimer decision.

"You have situations where people who sought to inflict pain are released and this man who sought to relieve pain is detained. That has to reveal, at best, a bizarre set of priorities," the association's lead counsel, Alan Borovoy, said in an interview yesterday.

In a letter to the federal justice and public safety ministers, Mr. Borovoy asked Ottawa to appeal the decision to deny Mr. Latimer parole.

"The board appears to require that he engage in a ritual of contrition. But both the statute and the policy guidelines for the board take the position that its role is not to brainwash the prisoners but rather to assess whether they would pose a risk to the safety of society," he wrote. "To this extent, the board appears to have invoked considerations beyond its mandate."

Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt said he will urge Ms. Park's family to seek an appeal of the Wallin decision.

"Robert Latimer is clearly not a threat to society. Robert Gary Wallin is," he said.

Ms. Park was jogging in Stanley Park when Mr. Wallin, who was feeling stressed about a personal relationship and frustrated by his reliance on his parents for financial support, grabbed her and choked her into unconsciousness. He told the parole board he wanted someone else to feel the pain he was feeling.

The Park family lives in Mr. Mayencourt's Vancouver-Burrard riding. He has met with the family many times since the 2002 assault and said the family had no idea that Mr. Wallin was up for parole.

"The kind of bitterness I feel about this is pretty intense. That guy is going to be in Stanley Park in four weeks, and there doesn't even seem to be any logic," he said yesterday.

"The family should have been at the table, they are not just afraid for their own safety, but they are looking at the Canadian justice system really letting them down."

Justice Minister Robert Nicholson's office referred all questions to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who was not available for comment yesterday.