Xu Ting, a migrant worker, will undoubtedly go down in this country's contemporary history as a marker of multiple meanings in the path to the rule of law.

The 24-year-old had never expected that an ATM would have allowed him to withdraw 1,000 yuan ($144) even though his account balance said only 1 yuan had been taken out. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the ATM.

No one knows what the young man, who was working as a security guard at Guangdong Supreme People's Court at the time, was thinking the moment he discovered that the ATM slot turned out to be a source of easy money.

But the fact that he took money from that machine 171 times, and even got one of his fellow workers to do the same, is convincing evidence that greed had overtaken the moral impulse not to take money that did not belong to him. Altogether, he took more than 170,000 yuan ($24,300) from the machine.

The fact that he fled with the money and remained on the lam until more than one year later in May 2007 suggests that he knew exactly what he had done.

The temptation was just so strong that he could not resist it. If he had simply been given five years in jail, he would not be getting the attention he is getting today.

Instead he was given a life sentence on charges of stealing cash from a financial institution. The verdict infuriated the media, netizens and even some judicial experts. Some Internet portals received more than 10,000 visits in a single day from people who wanted to weigh in on the issue. Many expressed strong opposition to the severe punishment.

The injustice at play here was driven home by comparisons with the sentences most corrupt officials receive. A senior official, who had misappropriated as much as 24 billion yuan ($3.5 billion) and received more than 1 million yuan ($144,000) in bribes, was sentenced to only eight years. There are many instances of corrupt officials being given life sentences or other stretches for embezzling or receiving bribes of millions of yuan.

In striking contrast to those corrupt officials, who abused their power by embezzling public funds and milking bribes from those in need of their favor, this young man did not have any intention of getting an easy fortune the moment he used the ATM. The dysfunction of the ATM stirred up his greed.

Had nothing gone wrong with the ATM, he would have had no way to get the money that led to his sentence.

Of course, this does not mean his actions did not constitute a crime. But the judges who deliberated his case should have taken into consideration the fact that his motivation for committing the crime was created by the broken ATM.

The life sentence came in accordance with the prescriptions of the criminal law, which stipulates that the crime of stealing money from a financial institution could lead to capital punishment or life imprisonment, depending on the sum stolen.

The judges said thefts of more than 100,000 yuan ($14,400) meet the standard for a heavy punishment. If one stole more than that or exactly that much from a financial institution, he or she would be given a life sentence or even be executed. If one stole 99,999 yuan, just 1 yuan below the line, he or she would spend less than 10 years in jail.

To be fair, the judges who sentenced Xu were only meting out the prescribed punishment. The focal point of the debate is whether an ATM should be considered a financial institution. The judges believed so and not without reason. As an outlet of a bank, an ATM serves customers the way a bank does and therefore should be considered as part of a financial institution.

But there should be a difference between smashing an ATM or using tricks to get more money out of one and what Xu did.

Online surveys conducted by different Internet portals show that more than half of those queried would have done what Xu did if they were in a similar situation. Less than 10 percent said that they would immediately report the dysfunction to the bank. The remaining 40 percent said they would like to follow Xu's lead, but were afraid of being caught.

It is clear that the criminal law covering thefts from financial institutions fails to take into consideration cases like Xu's. And the judges clearly did not display enough flexibility in applying the legal code in court.

The reduction of Xu's life imprisonment to five years in the second instance trial last month is an indication that judges could have discretion in measuring the degree of guilt.

The latest developments in the case prompted another prisoner, who committed exactly the same crime and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002, to consider appealing.

The repercussions of Xu's case will certainly be far beyond how many years of imprisonment people who commit similar crimes should face. Some legal experts have already proposed that the National People's Congress revise the stipulation in the criminal law concerning theft from financial institutions.

While the provincial higher court threw the first verdict out for a retrial, public pressure played an indispensable role in helping this young man get a much lighter sentence.

This reminds us of the case of Sun Zhigang, whose death at a detention center in 2003 resulted in the abolition of the country's detention and repatriation system.

The attention from the media and Internet prompted a serious investigation into the case and finally led to the abolition of the system and its replacement by a new system to aid vagrants and homeless people in urban areas.

It is inspiring to see that the involvement of public opinion either from the Internet and media are playing an increasingly important role in accelerating the progress of the rule of law in China.

But the judicial department must make judgment over voices from the Internet and media, in spite of their impact on the progress of the rule of law. In Xu Ting's case, some even suggest that Xu is completely innocent and what he has committed is just a mistake rather than a crime.

Public opinion is important, but it should never intervene in the rule of law.

The conclusion of Xu's case will hopefully set a precedent for similar cases and bring about a revision of the criminal law to better uphold justice.

(China Daily 05/10/2008 page4)