In a single unscripted sentence, spoken because he could not help himself, Roland Deming had shown the entire courtroom the man his lawyers had spent days trying to hide — had proven, live, in front of the people deciding his fate, exactly what he was.

His threat destroyed him more completely than any evidence we submitted, because it was not evidence we submitted.

It was simply him, being himself, when he thought no one important was listening.

The abuser’s deepest problem, I have come to understand, is that he cannot sustain the performance forever.

Sooner or later, in some unguarded moment, the real thing shows.

Roland’s real thing showed at the defense table, into a live microphone, and the jury saw it.