He’s angling for leniency. Judge instead of a jury trial, talking up “i only hit her arms, not her face,” saying he “lost control so it was unintentional,” that he “feared disease becaue he takes care of his family.”

Basically a shotgun of not being responsible, but then he was kind while not being responsible, but also he was really being responsible for other people.

Just pure appeals to emotion from a man who unlocked a door to go back into a cell to beat the shit out of a fully incapacitated prisoner.