Excerpt from "The defense is ready" by Leslie Abramson:

When he talks about the prison days to come (as soon as he's formally sentenced in a few weeks), he says very slowly so that the individual words sink in, "Life ... without... the... possibility... of... parole."

He looks for a metaphor, an image. "It's like you're a beam of light in a box and there are no cracks in the box."

He can't get over the fact that this sentence is meant to be permanent "That's not punishment," he says, "that's torture."

His idea of punishment is that it is what parents ordinarily do, something meant to change you, not merely to exact pain. I tell him he's naive. No one believes in rehabilitation or treatment anymore. No one expects prison to change him in any positive way and no one cares if he suffers.

Exasperated, he says, "That doesn't make sense. After all, it is called the Department of Corrections."