Convicted murderer Fred Neulander "importuned" the jury to spare his life Friday.

"Importuned" is a direct quote. Like everything else in the seemingly endless 22 minutes of Neulander's importuning, the high-faluting word showcased a smug, remorseless and calculating mind at work.

A columnist faced with selecting a suitable word to describe Neulander's performance, on the other hand, yearns to throw calculation and caution to the winds.

Astonishing, outrageous, revealing, ridiculous, shameless, shameful ... the adjectival abundance is nonetheless insufficient.

Perhaps "galling," the word Neulander's son Matthew used during a Court TV interview Friday, says it best.

It boggles the mind that the man responsible for having his wife beaten to death so he could pursue an affair would try to use the occasion of his plea to the jury to teach, of all things, a moral lesson.

But that's what Neulander attempted to do.

Mercilessly torturing a phrase from Genesis - "The Days of the Years of My Life" - evidently to provide his sermonette with a theme and a title, the disgraced rabbi offered step- by-step instructions.

Neulander orchestrated the sort of laborious exegesis one might encounter in advanced Bible study. He spoke in a tone of exaggerated patience that was subtly patronizing, and his manner was a bizarre blend of "aw shucks" and "now I will impart to you the wisdom of the ages."

His oration included a painful-to-hear paean to the wife and mother whose slaughter he engineered.

As in his testimony during last year's trial, Neulander exceeded the bounds of audacity and tastelessness.

He extolled Carol Neulander as "a remarkable woman" whom he "loved" and continues to love. He praised her abilities as a hostess and businesswoman and he offered a sample of their intimate chatter.

Before moving on to his presentation's social commentary phase - about the curse of illiteracy - the 61-year-old murderer had what appeared to be an unscripted moment.

It came just before Neulander "importuned" the jurors to let him live so he could enrich "the days of the years" of the lives of illiterate inmates.

"Wherever I will be ...," Neulander said.

His voice faltered.

He seemed to display something other than the theatrical approximation, or intellectual pretense, of emotion.

He seemed to have genuine tears in his eyes.

Genuine fear, too.

After Neulander finished his presentation, it took several hours before the jury's decision to spare him was announced.

Several hours before he was relieved of the fear of imminent death he presumably has been living with since his conviction Wednesday.

That's 48 hours spent facing the imminent end of "the days of the years of my life," in his own mantra-like words.

One hopes that Carol Neulander had but the briefest moments of fear for her life as she was attacked by the two sleazebags her husband procured to execute her.

But it's worth noting that the man responsible for her death was himself so afraid of dying that his facade cracked - even for the briefest moment - during his otherwise preposterous performance in the courtroom Friday.

That glimpse into the suffering of his soul calls to mind a final word.

Justice.