Not even 15 years

So, instead of life, special police guard Epaminondas Korkoneas got 13 years. Not even 15 to match the age of his victim, Alexis Grigoropoulos, to represent - if only symbolically - each year of a life that was so violently terminated on December 6, 2008, on Tzavella Street in the downtown Athens neighborhood of Exarchia.

He was convicted of "homicide with intent to cause harm," yet he is free today because he is considered to have paid his dues after spending 11 years behind bars. We don't know much about how he spent those days; whether he was haunted by nightmares and wracked with guilt. What we do know about his state of mind is his own horrific admission to a court of appeal in Lamia, central Greece, in December 2016: "There is no way I will apologize to some 15-year-old kid."

This phrase didn't just encapsulate the contempt people like Korkoneas feel for "15...